


Chasing Red Camellias

by MurphyPi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Anbu Uchiha Itachi, Big Brother Uchiha Itachi, Canon Compliant, Curse of Hatred, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hatake Kakashi is a Troll, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, Trust Issues, Uchiha Massacre, Uchiha OC, will of fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22511272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphyPi/pseuds/MurphyPi
Summary: Red camellias represent love or a noble death.Uchiha Kasumi was of the opinion, that both were goals worth chasing. No matter the cost.A Kakashi x OC slow burn fic
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Original Female Character(s), Uchiha Itachi & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 59
Kudos: 277
Collections: Amazing OFC fanfiction





	1. Masked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya,
> 
> lovely to read you.  
> This is a spin on the Uchiha-OC trope, that miraculously survives the Uchiha no Jiken and takes care of Sasuke like a doting mother only to fall in love with Kakashi once the grumpy Jōnin becomes the boy's team leader. 
> 
> Yeah....no.
> 
> That's not happening here. No worries. I try to make my stories logical and organic.  
> This is going to be gritty and raw and bloody and damn painful. Because the whole damn Naruto Universe is traumatic. And let's admit it, that's part of what draws us in. At least, that's what fascinates me enough to write stories. The intricacies of traumatic events and their effects on interhuman dynamics.  
> ...or something like that.
> 
> The summary isn't much (yet? I don't know), so thanks for clicking anyway!  
> I try to not disappoint. Usually.
> 
> Have fun with the first chapter and I'd appreciate feedback in any way, kudos, comments or criticism. 
> 
> Read ya soon,  
> Murphy

Shinobi sandals made only soft noise, as they hastened over tatami mats. A gentle rustle of fabric came from the midnight-blue yukata. The groaning sound of a tatami mat lifted. Then quick steps on stairs. The sliding of a door.  
A deep bow. Long, black hair spilt like a waterfall over delicate, strong shoulders.  
“Please, excuse my lateness, otō-sama.”  
A melodic, firm voice. Female and young. 

“You are excused. Sit, Kasumi.”

The girl straightened up and hastily sat down next to her twin brother, her legs perfectly folded underneath her body in a seiza. Some of the elder shot her disapproving glares. Her brother gifted her with a small, rare smile. Kasumi smiled back, as their chakras mingled in an intimate greeting. Two flames playing with each other in a familiar dance.  
Kasumi let her gaze drift in the dimly lit room. She knew everyone; the elders, her father, some middle-aged warriors, a few women. Their clan symbol was proudly displayed on the wall behind her father. It elicited a conflicting feeling of warmth and nausea within Kasumi, so she hastily looked away.  
“As I said”, one of the elders, continued with a sharp look at Kasumi, “the treatment is unacceptable. Over six years of humiliation. It’s time we do something about it, Fugaku.”  
“And what do you suggest we should do, Hibiki?”, Kasumi’s father asked calmly. He was as stoic as always, but she could see the wrinkles around his mouth. He was tired.  
Hibiki had no answer to that, apparently, as he shrunk back a bit in his sitting position. 

“Do we have a lead on who the defector was?”, Old Kanna spoke up, her eyes wise and her voice soft.  
“Not one measly trail”, a middle-aged man growled out. Junpei, a high official within the Konoha Military Police Force.  
Old Kanna closed her eyes and nodded slowly. “Then we need to go through all clansmen KIA”, she said slowly and nodded again. “See if their bodies were recovered or not.”  
Junpei’s expression hardened. That was an almost impossible task. “Fugaku-sama?”, he said towards his clan head, a slight incredulous tone to his dark voice.  
Fugaku hesitated, as he pondered. The flicker of fire illuminating the sharp angles of his face.  
“There doesn’t seem to be another option”, he then said and Junpei visibly slumped. “Start with fifty years back.”  
“What about the village?”, Hibiki pushed yet again, his dark eyes gleaming with hatred in the dim light. Kasumi’s mouth twitched. She had never liked him. 

“Our forces can be organised to strike at any given moment”, Asuka said lowly, his face grim, but determined. Kasumi swallowed. She felt Itachi slightly stiffen next to her.  
Fugaku nodded. “Then organise them”, he said. “Have them alert and sharp. Trained for the worst. But we’re not striking. Not yet.”  
His dark eyes travelled towards his children. “…not yet.”

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi and Itachi walked close besides each other, when they left the Naka Shrine later. Their father had looked at them at the end of the meeting, drawing all eyes to them.  
“You know, what you have to do.”  
Kasumi let out a shaky breath and let the sinking feeling of dread wash over her for a second. Immediately a warmth emanated from Itachi to comfort her. Kasumi tilted her head slightly and smiled at him in silent thanks. At least, neither of them had to bear the burden alone. 

“Change and meet up in ten minutes?”, Itachi asked, once they reached their home. Kasumi nodded and opened her mouth to reply, just as the sound of hastily pattering feet silenced her.  
“Nii-san! Nee-san!”, Sasuke yelled excitedly as he rushed to greet them at the door. “Do you have time to train with me? You promised yesterday!” His dark eyes clung to his elder sister. Kasumi sighed deeply, her heart heavy as she looked at Sasuke. Itachi took a step forward and poked Sasuke tenderly on his forehead.  
“Sorry, Sasuke”, he said with a sad smile and stepped to the side to let Kasumi place a soft kiss on the place he had poked.  
“Next time”, she continued gently, as her twin and her walked past their younger brother towards their respective rooms. Although Kasumi stopped shortly in the kitchen to get some of the bentō boxes her mother prepared each morning and sealed them into special scrolls made by Kushina years ago. They had an appointment to uphold, as much as it pained them to leave Sasuke disheartened like that. 

Kasumi shed the traditional yukata she usually wore during down time as soon as she had closed the door to her room. She folded it neatly and put it away. The clothes she would need to wear on missions now, sat on her bed, already waiting. She pulled on the standard kunoichi trousers, sandals and a simple grey shirt over tight under armour. Practical for combat. Not too flashy.  
As she pulled her long, black hair into a high ponytail, her dark gaze lifted as well and stopped on a picture frame on her nightstand. It showed Itachi and her with Sasuke in between them. They were younger, much younger than now, in the picture. Almost carefree and smiling brightly. Especially Sasuke. She clenched her jaw tightly and grabbed the hiati-ate from her bed to tie it around her head.  
It was Sasuke she was doing this for. So her younger brother had a chance at happiness. 

A second later, she stood on the roof, where Itachi already waited for her. They looked at each other and without so much as a silent understanding between them, they shunshinned away.

_  
_

Their feet easily carried them to the ANBU building, where they vanished inside without anyone noticing them despite the broad daylight. The front desk was manned with an ANBU wearing a mouse mask.  
“Uchiha Itachi reporting”, Itachi said and stepped forward.  
“Huh?”, the ANBU said and scrutinised both of them from underneath his mask. “Here’s your equipment.” He pushed a box with a katana and a porcelain mask towards Itachi.  
“Thank you”, Itachi said, took the things and stepped to the side.  
Kasumi took his place fluidly. “Uchiha Kasumi reporting.”  
“Hai, hai”, Mouse muttered and pushed another, similar set towards her.  
“Thank you”, Kasumi said, bowed her head and took it.  
“You’re assigned to Team Ro”, the ANBU said. Kasumi and Itachi bowed again and left, while Mouse muttered something about insufferable politeness. 

They reached the room marked as Team Ro locker room without problems. Dark eyes shared a look before they entered. They knew, what was coming.  
The academy hadn’t been kind to prodigies and they had little hope, that it was any different within ANBU. At least, they had each other.  
Itachi opened the door and entered first, Kasumi following him. The room was filled with ANBU already in uniform and most even wearing masks. Kasumi felt anxiety take root in her gut, but the calm chakra spike from Itachi let her loosen her muscles again. Her lips twitched in a smile. They had each other. No one could harm them.  
“We’ve been assigned to Team Ro as of today”, Itachi said to introduce themselves. “I’m Uchiha Itachi.”  
“My name is Uchiha Kasumi”, Kasumi chimed in, her voice firm like her brother’s. “We’d appreciate your guidance.” An ANBU not wearing a mask, but face guards came up to them, as the others simply stared. Kasumi’s jaw clenched in quiet anger.  
“Ah, I see”, the ANBU with the face guard said. “So that’s you two.” He scrutinised them with a smile. “You can use the two lockers farthest in the back.”  
“Hai”, Itachi said and both he and Kasumi walked towards their lockers. 

“Those two are them?”  
“They say they’re only eleven.”  
“Doesn’t that make them the youngest ANBU ever?”

The mumbles followed them and Kasumi had to reign in her temper. Itachi simply let his shoulder brush hers in order to calm his sister. She had inherited their father’s temper, while Itachi came after their mother. They balanced each other out pretty decently.  
Kasumi took a deep breath, before she stripped out of her shirt, revealing the sleeveless under armour and the swirled ANBU tattoo on her left shoulder.  
“Team Ro is to assemble at Training Ground Three in five minutes”, the face-guard-ANBU spoke up. Kasumi and Itachi simultaneously turned their heads. All other ANBU were staring at them. Someone muttered something about creepy twins. Kasumi’s lips twitched.  
“Hai”, Itachi said simply and returned towards changing into his uniform. Kasumi shot her new team mates a dark look, before she herself grabbed the grey flak jacket from within the box. Nothing but a short fluctuation of chakra signatures signalled them to the other ANBU leaving them alone.  
“It’s just like the academy all over again”, Kasumi growled underneath her breath, while she fastened the flak jacket flush to her torso.  
Itachi sighed, but then turned his head to smile at his sister. “At least, we got each other.”  
Kasumi’s hard glare softened and her tense shoulders relaxed. “Hai”, she smiled back. The standard katana was easily strapped to her back, although she knew, that she would miss her own katana dearly. Then she put shuriken, kunai and multiple scrolls into the ninja pouches attached to her flak jacket.  
Her slim hands hesitated for a second. Hovering over the last item.  
_For Sasuke._ She reminded herself, grabbed the porcelain mask and fastened it to hide her features. She turned and looked at her twin. Now, wearing the same uniform and similar masks, it was more than obvious, that they were twins. As either of them had yet to hit puberty, the only thing distinguishing them from each other was the fact, that Itachi still wore his shirt beneath his flak jacket, hiding his tattoo and that Kasumi wore her ponytail higher than Itachi.  
“Ready?”, she asked him. Dark eyes locking with equally dark ones.  
“As I’ll ever be.” 

_  
_

The others waited for them. As they walked closer, right next to each other, their shoulders almost touching, a kunai suddenly embedded itself next to Kasumi’s left foot. Her left eye twitched underneath her mask. But Itachi stoically walked on, so Kasumi took a deep breath to reign in her anger once more and followed his lead. Shuriken followed to fly around them. They walked on. They’d know, if one was dangerous.  
When one of the shuriken sunk into the tree trunk right in front of Itachi’s face with a low thud, Kasumi stopped. Her teeth gnawed, but she was well-bred enough to not show her anger openly.  
“What are you doing?” A sharp voice asked from behind them. Kasumi slowly turned her head to see the ANBU with the dog mask standing there, his whole demeanour utterly unimpressed. Another ANBU wearing a cat mask stood next to him.  
“Explain yourselves!”

“We wanted to make sure, they had the skills to be one of us. Since they’re so young”, one of the ANBU answered finally. Kasumi wanted to scoff. Her eyes prickled with the need to reveal her Sharingan. To show them _exactly_ , what her skills entailed. But the calm presence of Itachi next to her reminded her, that bloodshed was unnecessary. They knew, what they were capable of and that was enough.  
Her mind wandered towards their mother whispering sweet nothings with a watery voice to them, before she left Itachi and Kasumi alone with Sasuke. She remembered the blood on the clothes of her clansmen and the deeply etched sorrow within their eyes. So many, so, so many funerals. No. Itachi and her had sworn to reduce the bloodshed to the absolutely necessary. It was the reason they had become as efficient as they were now.  
The faster one could end a fight, the less blood was spilt.

“Do you have a problem with the decision of your superiors?”, Inu asked, his voice still sharp, pulling Kasumi back to reality.  
“No, that’s not it—”  
“Haven’t you already sensed, that they’re not ordinary?”, Inu cut his team mate off. Kasumi wrinkled her nose. Words like those had singled her brother and her out from their peers in the academy.  
Inu turned towards them. “I’m Kakashi”, he introduced himself. “Captain of Team Ro.” Kasumi tilted her head towards him and up, to get a good look. He was tall and as well-trained as all of them. Spiky, grey hair protruded from his head and all around his mask like a lion’s mane. _Hn._ He had a powerful chakra signature to him.  
“I want you two to learn the ANBU rules and formations quickly”, he continued.  
“Hai.” Again it was Itachi, who answered for them both. 

“To set the team at ease, though…Let’s test your skill level”, Kakashi said and pointed towards multiple kunai targets on the trees close by.  
Itachi looked at Kasumi, who tilted her head in a tiny nod. Her brother went first. Kunai ready, he jumped up with might, swirled around to distribute the kunai. With a quick flick of his wrists, he sent some more kunai flying, so they could hit the others into their correct trajectory. With a flip he landed in a quiet thud. The kunai deadly centre in the targets.  
“He’s good”, one of their new team mates uttered lowly. Kasumi rolled her eyes behind her mask. Of course he was good.  
She jumped from her place, shuriken in small hands. A gleam in the air and the shuriken went flying. Using the same trick as her brother, she changed the trajectory with a few other shuriken and landed next to him, while her weapons found their target spot on.  
None spoke after that. Kasumi’s left eye twitched. _Idiots_.  
“They are talented”, Kakashi commented lowly. “But making exceptions for someone so young is rather unusual for ANBU.” Kasumi straightened herself up next to her brother. They shared a short glance. They knew, why there had been an exception for them.  
“Danzō-sama recommended them”, Neko offered as an explanation to his captain. Kasumi curled her lips at the thought of the old Council member. He had only recommended them to go into ANBU, to have two promising Uchiha within his grasp. Nothing more, nothing less. And their father had gone along with it to have his very own, loyal spies within the Black Ops.  
“No kidding?”, Kakashi asked. “They don’t fit the mold, though. What do you think?” He turned towards Neko.  
“Danzō-sama has his own, personal set of criteria for ANBU and Root agents”, Neko answered easily, while Kasumi and Itachi just stood there. Kasumi’s chakra smoldering right beneath her skin, while Itachi’s was calm.  
“Ah”, Kakashi nodded and looked at the newest recruits to his team. 

“Kasumi.”  
The girl looked up, the darkness beneath her mask glaring at Kakashi.  
“You’re with Tenzō today”, he nodded towards Neko. Kasumi nodded and shunshinned next to the ANBU.  
“Itachi”, Kakashi continued. “You’re with me.”  
“Hai, taichō”, Itachi said. Kasumi wanted to roll her eyes at her brother. They were both polite and well-mannered, but Itachi brought it to a whole new level.  
“The rest”, Kakashi turned his head away from the young Uchihas, “training day.”

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Tenzō had pulled a mission scroll from his pouch as soon as he had led Kasumi away from the rest of Team Ro.  
“A simple guarding detail”, he said and Kasumi could hear the smile in his voice. She nodded, as he handed her the scroll to read through their orders. Guard an important foreign merchant applying for asylum on his way to Konohagakure. Contact with enemy nin highly possible.  
“Am I right in assuming, that there’s a Chūnin team assigned as well?”, Kasumi asked lowly. Tenzō’s head shot down to look at her.  
“You talk”, he said bluntly.  
Kasumi furrowed her brows behind the mask. “Of course, I talk.” She did prefer Itachi talking, though. He usually had a better way with words, than her polite, but blunt rudeness.  
When Tenzō still didn’t answer, Kasumi repeated: “So…what about the Chūnin team, senpai?”  
That apparently snapped Tenzō out of whatever musing he was in. “H-hai”, he said, a bit baffled by the honorific, but then he nodded. “Two Chūnin and a Jōnin. And you can call me Tenzō.” Tenzō looked at the sky and then back at the girl. “You ready? We have to catch them before they’re out of the village.”  
Kasumi simply nodded and a moment later, they both vanished in a fast shunshin, leaving nothing behind but a small dust of dirt swirling around. 

They had caught up to the Chūnin team in no time, running in an easy jog parallel to them, without them noticing. Though, truth be told, Kasumi nearly missed the next branch, when she saw who exactly was part of the Chūnin team. She would know those two everywhere. Her heart ached a bit, but the determination to make this mission a success only intensified.  
“You good?”, Tenzō asked in that calm way, that reminded her a bit of Itachi.  
“Ah”, Kasumi answered with a noncommittal shrug. “Izumo and Kotetsu were part of my Genin team”, she added after a while, he should know, because that could become a possible liability to their mission. As if understanding her falter better, Tenzō nodded and looked back to the front to see where he was running. 

A few hours later they arrived at a village, where a fat, boisterous merchant with layers upon layers of thick yukata and multiple rings on his fingers waited impatiently on them. Kasumi looked up into the sky to check for the time. They were probably two to three hours early. _Idiot._ Her left eye twitched.  
Tenzō and her observed the exchange quietly from around a corner, hidden from sight and clouded in Genjutsu. Kasumi leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of her chest and one foot pushed up against the wall. Her head slightly downcast to listen easier. A small, fond smile pulled at her lips, when she heard Kotetsu’s lazy drawl and Izumo’s chiding. _Ah. Sometimes she missed those idiots._

On the merchant’s insistence, they set out that very afternoon. They would need to camp on the road, if the slow pace was anything to judge by. Kasumi sighed. She had wanted to be home for dinner…and train with Sasuke afterwards. She had to make up for that.  
“I’ve send word, that the mission will take longer”, Tenzō said next to Kasumi.  
“Thank you”, Kasumi replied, before she added, “do you have provisions with you, Tenzō-senpai?” Her gaze lingered on the slow trek of waggons and employees of the merchant below them. The two ANBU had jumped almost lazily from branch to branch for the last couple of hours. The merchant was a difficult client and Kasumi was relieved, that she didn’t have to deal with him. That she could stay in the shadows.  
“Some food pills”, Tenzō replied and Kasumi pulled a face underneath her mask. She hated those things with a passion. A slow nod was all Tenzō got as an answer and they fell yet again into comfortable silence. Kasumi appreciated, that her team mate wasn’t someone prone to talking. And apparently also not as judgemental as the rest of Team Ro, with the exception of their buntaichō. She started to feel somewhat comfortable in his presence. 

_Ah._ Kasumi wondered, how Itachi was doing. Her gaze lifted to the blue sky she could see through the leaves of the trees just above her. She was curious about their new team mates. Itachi would have much to tell her.

They stopped only a bit later. The place was a good one, hidden from sight and shielded from nature’s most rough forces. Tenzō signalled for Kasumi, that they’d make a perimeter sweep and meet up at the other side of the camp. Kasumi nodded and only a second later, the red glow of the Sharingan illuminated the eye slits of her mask. She looked like a demon of old ages. Tenzō furrowed his brows slightly, as the girl shunshinned away. The Sharingan was indeed an eerie sight.  
The sight didn’t greet him, when Tenzō arrived at the other side of the camp. Kasumi had found a comfortable place on a broad branch, one leg up, the other hanging from the branch and her back rested against the tree trunk. Tenzō blinked. _So lazy._ He smiled. It felt a bit familiar. 

“Let’s eat something”, Tenzō said and pushed his mask to the side. He pulled a pack of food pills from his pouch.  
“Oh, please wait a moment, Tenzō-senpai”, Kasumi stopped him. Tenzō’s face heated up, he wasn’t used to be called senpai.  
She pushed her mask away, just like he had and produced a scroll from her pouch. Her left hand held the scroll and her right hand made half of a hand sign. The seal on the scroll released and a bentō box appeared in a puff of smoke. Tenzō’s eyes widened comically, when Kasumi caught it in mid air and held it out to him.  
“My okā-san makes them for us and seals them in special scrolls from—” Her words faltered. “…scrolls she had gotten from Kushina-san”, she ended a bit more subdued. Tenzō stared at her. _Kushina?_  
“Tenzō-senpai. It’s not poisoned”, she added calmly, when Tenzō had yet to move a muscle. At that, he held his hand out to take the bentō box from her, but didn’t let his eyes trail off of the girl. Kasumi huffed in…was that amusement? She exchanged the now empty scroll with another one, just to unsealed it for a second bentō box to appear. Tenzō blinked utterly baffled.  
“Itadakimasu”, she said and put her small hands together in a quiet clap. Then she just started eating. 

“How many bentō boxes are you carrying around with you?!”, Tenzō suddenly blurted out. The box in his own hand almost forgotten at the girl’s antics. Kasumi stopped with the chopsticks half-way to her mouth. She let her other hand slip into the pouch at the back of her flak jacket. An entirely too cute look crossed her face, as she concentrated on counting the scrolls.  
“One more, senpai”, she then answered and went back to eating. When she didn’t hear anything from him, her dark eyes lifted and found his in the quickly disappearing daylight. They were surprisingly stern for an eleven-year-old and Tenzō remembered with a jolt through his muscles, that the girl was Uchiha Fugaku’s daughter.  
“Please, eat, Tenzō-senpai. Food pills are gross and if one wants to fight properly, one has to eat properly.”  
“H-hai”, Tenzō replied and stared at the delicious looking bentō box in his hand. He wasn’t sure, how exactly he would report _this_ back to Kakashi. 

Their dinner was cut short, when their heads simultaneously perked up. Two pairs of dark eyes met. In an instant, the bentō boxes were put down and the masks readjusted to hide their faces.  
“What do you sense?”, Tenzō asked.  
Kasumi closed her eyes to remove an unnecessary stimuli. “Five incoming. Three o’clock. Half a click away.”  
A moment later, they felt the Jōnin stand from his position, the Chūnin stirred as well.  
“Tell them, that we’ll handle this and then join me”, Tenzō ordered. Kasumi nodded and a heart beat later, both had vanished. 

Kasumi appeared in a crouch in front of the Jōnin. She immediately straightened up. Izumo and Kotetsu jerked back a bit, clearly startled by the sudden arrival of an ANBU.  
“Please don’t worry, Jōnin-san, we will handle the hostiles”, she said to the Jōnin. Then she jumped up and within a few fast shunshins, she had reached the closest opponent. Her eyes registered the Kiri hitai-ate and analysed him in seconds even without the Sharingan. In a fluid motion, Kasumi pulled the katana from her back, while she easily dodged an attack.  
Steel gleamed in the dieing light of the day. A splatter of blood. The thud of a body falling lifelessly to the ground and Kasumi was off to her next target. 

It took her and Tenzō less than two minutes to kill all the hostiles silently and without the use of any flashy jutsu. They came to stand next to the last nin fallen. Kasumi cleaned her katana at the clothes of the Kiri-nin, before she sheathed it again.  
“So you prefer kenjutsu?”, Tenzō asked with a tilt of his head.  
“Hai, senpai”, Kasumi answered simply, while she leaned down and sealed the body into an empty scroll. It was protocol to gather the bodies for T&I. Tenzō smiled as he saw how meticulous she was. He jumped away to seal the other bodies. A quick examination of one of her victims revealed, that she had killed with one clean cut. Effective and fast. Kakashi would be pleased with the report Tenzō could give. 

They both appeared in front of the Jōnin after they gathered all bodies. The snores of the merchant still coming loud and irregular from his tent.  
“The threat has been taken care of, Jōnin-san”, Kasumi said so politely, that Tenzō had to blink in wonder yet again. “We will continue to be your security detail. So please, sleep tight.” Tenzō had to stifle his chuckle. So polite.  
Izumo and Kotetsu gawked openly at Kasumi now, but a sharp look from behind a porcelain mask kept them silent. They knew that look too well.  
“Thank you, Ōkami-san”, the Jōnin said, addressing Kasumi by way of her mask. Amusement was clear in his voice. Tenzō nodded at the Jōnin and then signalled Kasumi to retreat again. 

Kasumi took the same position as before the little skirmish and continued to eat her bentō. Tenzō furrowed his brows at that, but returned his attention to his own bentō box only moments later.  
It was a really delicious bentō, after all. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Tenzō had sent Kasumi home right after they had arrived in Konohagakure during early afternoon hours the next day. She was to rest up and meet Team Ro the following day at the crack of dawn for a team building training session. Kasumi had excused herself from his presence with a tiny bow and a polite goodbye, telling him in the same breath, that he too should get some much needed sleep. 

After reporting back to Danzō, Tenzō went to meet up with Kakashi. He already saw the grey haired head of his friend from afar on a roof opposite to the entrance gate of the Uchiha compound. Tenzō came to a stop next to Kakashi, also looking towards the gate, where none other than Kasumi, clad in tight-fitting combat trousers and a yukata with the Uchiha crest on the back, exited with her little brother trailing after her.  
“Eh? I told her to rest”, Tenzō said a bit displeased, that she didn’t listen to him.  
“You did?”, Kakashi asked and Tenzō nodded. “We’ve alternated night shift every two hours”, he explained, which basically meant neither of them had gotten a lot of sleep the last night.  
“I see”, Kakashi murmured, his one visible eye following Kasumi and Sasuke walking down the street. “What do you think of her, Tenzō?”  
“She’s quiet, not a big talker, but ridiculously skilled for her age”, Tenzō began his report, just as the subject of their conversation turned a corner and left their sight. “She’s not one for taijutsu, but excels in kenjutsu. Every enemy she engaged with was struck down with one clean cut across the throat. No hesitation.”  
“Ah”, Kakashi nodded and let his eyes travel back to the compound. “Just as expected. Her brother is the same. A bit demure maybe, but definitely a prodigy.”  
“I see. It's very obvious, that Kasumi's Fugaku-sama’s daughter, though”, Tenzō ventured into the aspects in his report concerning her character.  
Kakashi quirked a brow and looked at his friend. “How so?”  
“Polite to a point it’s intimidating”, Tenzō clarified with a light scowl turning the corners of his mouth down. “And wary of anything and anyone around her. I don’t think she relaxed once from her proper mannerism. Maybe a defence mechanism to keep others out?”  
“That’s possible”, Kakashi mused. “The Uchiha have been separated and doubted ever since—” He stopped himself and turned to look at Tenzō. “The team building sessions will be essential. We can’t have team mates unable to feel at least professional comfort with the rest of the team. It might make the difference between failing or succeeding in a mission.”  
“Hai, Kakashi-senpai”, Tenzō answered and a faint blush dusted his cheeks as he used the honorific.  
Kakashi titled his head in question. “What is it?”  
“I-it’s nothing, really, j-just…” Tenzō trailed off and stared stoically towards the Uchiha compound. “She called me s-senpai, too.”  
Kakashi chuckled lowly at the obvious embarrassment of his friend. Then he lifted one hand from the pockets of his trousers and waved a lazy wave, as he turned.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Tenzō”, he said, amusement still evident in his voice. “ _Ja ne._ ” With that he vanished in a poof of smoke.

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi sat on the ground of the Academy’s training ground number five, her back rested against a tree and the warm orange light of the setting sun softly caressing her skin. She held a scroll about the Uchiha’s katon techniques in her hands, though she hadn’t studied in a few minutes. Her dark eyes were trained on her little brother, who relentlessly tossed shuriken and kunai at the targets. A gentle smile tugged at her lips.  
“Don’t throw with your whole arm, Sasuke-chan”, she corrected softly. “Throw with your wrist.”  
Sasuke looked at her, his eyes bright with joy and determination. “Hai, nee-san!” And he went at it again.  
Kasumi was tired, very tired actually, and her back ached from sleeping on a tree the last night, but nothing could have stopped her from training with Sasuke. His joy and happiness, the urge to show her how much he had improved…it was worth the pain and the argument she had had with her father. In the end they had compromised on Kasumi overseeing Sasuke’s kenjutsu training, while she studied the new jutsu Fugaku wanted to teach her. 

The young Uchiha heiress let her head fall against the tree bark and closed her eyes. Itachi hadn’t been in the compound, when she had returned. Probably off, training with Shisui. She was curious, what he had to say about their new taichō. Ah. Maybe they could talk later.  
The sun was warm on her skin. Her breathing slowed into a deep, regular rhythm. The constant thud of kunai meeting wood echoed through her mind.

“Sumi-nee! Don’t sleep!”

Kasumi blinked her eyes open. Sasuke stood right in front of her, looking down with an expression somewhere between an impressive Uchiha-frown and a cute pout.  
“Ah”, Kasumi said lazily. “I’m sorry, Sasuke-chan.” Her eyes travelled to the darkening sky. _Had she really fallen asleep?_ With a tiny groan, she got up and put the scroll away into the pouch she had strapped to her obi.  
“Come, let’s get home”, she offered her hand with a soft smile. “Okā-san’s probably already waiting with dinner.”  
Sasuke took her hand with a wide grin. His small hand warm in hers. “Hai, nee-san!”

And so they walked through the bustling streets of Konohagakure. Sasuke grinning widely, inspirited from having his sister watch over his training and blissfully unaware of the wary glances.  
Kasumi, however, noticed them. The murmur, that followed them. The way some of the merchants put on an extra dark expression, so they wouldn’t stop to buy something from them. Eyes following their every movement with contempt and a deeply ingrained wariness. Kasumi’s left eye twitched and her gait became a bit more fluid, as her muscles instinctively prepared for an attack. Her shoulders squared in a display of power and she held her chin high.  
Every hateful stare was met with the stoic, slightly arrogant look Kasumi had copied from her father. They were Uchiha and that was something to be proud of. 

It were moments like this, that made Kasumi understand, why the Elders of her clan were out for blood.  
Not that she approved of it. Bloodshed only led to more bloodshed. But as she felt the humiliation and hatred wash over her with a bitter taste on her tongue, she understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, writing Tenzō/Yamato is so difficult!  
> And don't get me started on Kakashi, who - as I see it - has not yet settled into the personality we know from when he is 26/27 at the beginning of Naruto. He's about 20 in this one and has still a lot of growing to do. But Tenzō's there, so I guessed he's no longer a complete brick...
> 
> What do you think about Kasumi?  
> I tried to make the dynamic she has with Itachi as organic as possible. Since I don't have a twin personally, I can only hope their special bond comes across?  
> I also hope, that it's obvious, that she's no Itachi 2.0 but rather her own person with her own characteristics and quirks. 
> 
> Now, I'm just going to sit in front of my laptop, refresh the hell outta AO3 and wait anxiously, whether or not this little brain child of mine is accepted by you guys.
> 
> Read ya soon,  
> Murphy


	2. Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Team Ro still suspicious about Itachi and Kasumi, a bit of team building is needed in Kakashi's eyes.  
> And dinner at the Uchiha household is a...strange affair at times.

It was the next day, when Kakashi came in a bit late for the training session with his team. He knew, that they all were capable to start on their own and keep themselves occupied. What interested him and made him hide his presence for a bit longer, was how exactly his two new recruits would entertain themselves.  
Most of Team Ro had broken up into pairs of two, lightly sparring or quizzing each other on ANBU sign language. Tenzō was happily building whole mansions off to the side with his mokuton. Everything as it usually were. Kakashi’s eyes behind his mask travelled towards an area of the training field, where he could sense the two chakra signatures, that interested him most. He furrowed his brows. Their signatures were almost identical and in the nick of time, it would probably be difficult to distinguish them properly. 

Kakashi jumped a bit closer to them, carefully masking his chakra.  
The twins stood opposite to each other with a fair bit of space between them. Both the standard katana in their hand and the other raised to form hand seals.  
“Wouldn’t you think, learning suiton next would help us get rid of a weakness considering our affinity?”, Itachi mused, while he almost lazily formed the signs with one hand. He inhaled and spit a small ball of fire towards his sister.  
Kakashi narrowed his eyes, when he saw the blade of Kasumi’s katana suddenly coated with the soft humming of chakra. She fluidly formed an arch with the blade and cut right through the fireball jutsu. Slight tension rolled from her shoulders a second later and the chakra vanished from the blade.  
“Ah”, she said and titled her head from one side to the other, as she started to form hand seals with one hand. “But fūton would make our katon stronger.” She spit the same fire ball Itachi just had.  
Kakashi’s eyes instantly shot to the katana in Itachi’s hands. _Ah, just as he thought._ It lit up with chakra and cut through the attack with a single motion.  
“True. It would put a faster end to a fight”, Itachi answered, as he now spit a fire ball again.

Kakashi lingered for a while in the tree, watching as the twins quickened their hand seals and strengthened their attacks more and more, while still trying to cut through the attack with nothing but chakra coated steel. All the while discussing chakra manipulation theory about how to master another nature. It was…humbling in a way. And disheartening.  
There was a certain nonchalant air around them, as they tossed C-rank jutsu at each other without regard of any injuries. It told Kakashi, that they were used to such exercises and he was a tad bit concerned what real training actually meant to them. He knew the Uchiha to be strict and disciplined in every regard. _Well…mostly._ His heart clenched painfully at the thought, as he struggled with acidic memories of goggles and wide smiles.  
To make training deliberately dangerous in order to become strong…He began to understand, why Danzō had recommended them. This exercise demanded a certain amount of chakra control and a sharp mind. However, from their relaxed body language Kakashi derived, that this was warm up.

_Well…time to get them breaking a sweat._

_  
_

Kakashi shunshined to the centre of the training field.  
Immediately all sparring ended and the entire Team Ro shunshined to stand in front of their taichō. Kakashi contemplated his options for a moment. He was curious about seeing, how the twins operated together when faced with a real challenge. But he needed to break them up in order to make them more comfortable with the team. He felt a sigh built in his chest. For that to happen, he needed the apprehension from the older ANBU to stop.  
“Listen up”, he said, as he had made his decision. “I planted a flag somewhere on the training field with a small chakra marker. Part of you will defend the flag, the other part will try to steal it. All goes, but no lethal jutsu or strikes. Understood?”  
“Hai” A chorus of voices answered him.  
“Itachi. Kasumi”, Kakashi called out. Two small figures appeared in front of him. “You’re with me. We’ll be defending the flag.”  
“Hai”, Itachi answered for them both.  
“Tenzō”, Kakashi looked up to his friend. “One minute.”  
“Hai, senpai”, Tenzō answered. Kakashi looked at the rest of the team, then down to Itachi and Kasumi.  
“Go”, he said and followed the twins, as they shunshined to a safe distance. 

As soon as they landed, the siblings shared nothing but a short glance, before Kasumi turned to Kakashi.  
“Is assuming, that you observe us more than you will aid us in this, correct, Kakashi-taichō?”, she questioned in a low tone.  
“Hai”, Kakashi answered, a lazy smile dancing around his lips.  
“Then follow, please”, she said and as soon as she had stopped speaking, Itachi had jumped into the direction of the flag, Kasumi only half a step behind him. Ah. So Kasumi only took the task of speaking, because Itachi was the better sensor. Kakashi couldn’t help but to feel like this was going to be interesting.  
Tanzō had been right, though, she was painfully polite. 

They arrived at the flag in mere seconds. And again, it took not more than one glance between the siblings for them to dart into opposite directions. Kakashi closed his eyes and let his senses roam free, as he felt them plant traps and ninja wire and chakra strings all around.  
Kakashi furrowed his brows. They were all a bit off, though. A wire forgotten here and a missing seal on a trap there. He knew, that they were too good to make such mistakes, so it had to be intentional and that was actually, what caught his interest. Faulty traps, after all, did not give away any chakra signatures. 

They returned to his side in eerie synchrony.  
“You or I?”, Itachi asked, looking at his sister. She tilted his head from one side to the other, staring intently at her brother.  
“You”, Kasumi then said and gracefully sat down on one side of the flag’s post, her back against it and her legs comfortably crossed.  
Itachi sighed and stood at the other side of the flag, his back to his sister and his arms crossed over his chest. Somehow Kakashi felt, as if he had missed a whole conversation there.  
When Kasumi pulled a scroll from one of her pouches and began to read it, Kakashi nearly lost his composure. 

“I’ll tell Shisui, that you skipped out again”, Itachi suddenly said in a flat tone. Kasumi just huffed at that, but didn’t respond. From the soft chuckle, that came from Itachi by that reaction, Kakashi again felt as if there had been words spoken he hadn’t heard. _Was it a twin thing?_  
Kakashi felt the others approaching and only a heart beat later, Itachi’s eyes glowed crimson beneath his mask. He jumped away in order to intercept some of them. Kasumi, still studying the scroll, pulled out a few shuriken from her pouch and let them rotate in her right hand. Her eyes were still dark and focused on the scroll.  
Just as Kakashi felt a chakra come at the flag, Kasumi threw two shuriken with a flick of her wrist. One deflected a kunai aimed at her, the other seemed to…do nothing. _No, that couldn’t be right._ He heard a small gasp of pain and turned to see Kō trapped in wires. Kakashi activated his own sharingan. _Ah._  
Now he saw, that Kasumi had chakra strings attached to her shuriken. And that one of the shuriken she had thrown had actually provided the last string to trap Kō in between the chakra string and all the other wires. Kakashi’s eyes widened slightly.  
So that was, why the traps had been off. His eyes darted to the kunai she had deflected with the second shuriken. It had activate one of the traps, further keeping Kō confined to his position. Keeping the traps and wires open like that, it kept them flexible and enabled either Kasumi or Itachi to activate them in any way or form needed from any angle the enemy might come.  
That level of genius…was actually to be expected.

In the next blink of an eye, Kasumi had jumped up, the scroll now switched with her katana. Her stance was almost relaxed, as she held the tip of it to the throat of another of her new team mates.  
Straight, purple hair tumbled from behind the porcelain mask.  
“Oh”, the elder ANBU said. “Well, if that’s so.” She jumped away and pulled her own katana.  
Kakashi jumped out of the way, careful not to set off any wires or traps, as the two female ANBU engaged in a sword fight. The advantage in hight, range and strength definitely was with Yūgao, but Kasumi held her own easily even without her sharingan activated. She had a style, that reminded Kakashi of dancing in it’s fluid, but effective strikes. 

Kō had managed to free himself of the wire and was about to make a run for the flag, when Itachi appeared in front of him.  
“Sorry about this”, he said calmly and only a second later, Kō slumped. Itachi caught his body and placed him gently on the ground.  
Suddenly Yōji and Tenzō broke through the trees, joining the little fight. Kasumi still locked in a stance with her katana blocking Yūgao’s, turned her head away from her opponent. Itachi’s sharingan met Kasumi’s still dark eyes. A tiny smile curled around her lips, unseen beneath the mask, as she spun their dark colour into red pandemonium.  
The next moment, all hell broke loose.

Kakashi was certain, that he could only observe the following, because he himself had the sharingan. 

Itachi and Kasumi increased their speed suddenly. Their strikes coming faster and harder. Their shuriken and kunai even more precise than before.  
Wires and traps were spun and activated with the simple flick of a wrist. Their chakra signatures became so identical, that even Kakashi with his sharingan had problems to follow where they went, as they jumped and shunshined and danced around like flames in a fire becoming a firestorm. They were vicious and ridiculously effective.  
It took them together less than two minutes to incapacitate their team mates. 

All movement stilled.  
Yūgao was knocked out cold on the ground. Probably another genjutsu, although Kakashi wasn’t able to say who had cast it. He hadn’t seen it happening.  
Itachi held a kunai to Yōji’s throat, a cut on the boy’s cheek bleeding slightly.  
Kasumi stood in front of Tenzō her back turned towards him, but by the rigid look in Tenzō face, she had the tip of her katana pointed at the tiny, unprotected sliver within the ANBU flak jacket, that ensured movement.  
Kō was still slumped and unresponsive. 

Kakashi felt his muscles tense at the scene in front of him.  
For the first time, he truly understood the fear the Uchiha name elicited in even the most skilled ninja.  
He forced his instincts to relax.

Then Kakashi felt a disruption and _moved._  
He landed right next to the flag, just as Tenzō emerged from the ground. The Tenzō Kasumi held at bay turned into a wooden branch. Her eyes widened slightly. 

Tenzō was about to grab the flag, when Kakashi casually held a kunai to his throat.  
“Now, now”, he said with a lazy drawl. “I’m still also part of this team, ne?”  
Tenzō slumped, but let his hand fall to his side, accepting defeat. 

“Well”, Kakashi said, as he lazily put the kunai back into his pouch. “Now that _that’s_ out of the system.” He clapped his hands together to dispel the tension. The Uchiha twins immediately jumped away from their respective victims or in Kasumi’s case away from the branch. Both made the hand seal to release their genjutsu and their eyes dimmed to their natural colour.  
Kō groaned, as he sat up, a hand on his head. Yōji helped Yūgao up, although his face were directed at the two new recruits. 

“You should have been able to trust in the strength of your new team mates”, Kakashi started chiding his team, as they slowly gathered in front of him. His eyes darted from Yūgao to Yōji to Kō. “And not come to me with concerns. Itachi and Kasumi became ANBU due to their strength and abilities. They are part of Team Ro. Treat them as such.” Tenzō smiled slightly, as his older team mates looked down a bit ashamed at their taichō’s words.  
“And maybe next time we play this game, you won’t underestimate them. You were going in too self-assured and that’s why you were so easily overpowered. I’m certain next time will be more difficult.” His eyes flickered towards Kasumi and Itachi at his last sentence.  
“Itachi. Kasumi”, Kakashi addressed them directly. “You work flawlessly as a team together, just as expected. But this will mark the last time in a while, that you will work together.” Nothing betrayed their emotions about that bit of information. There was only a slight tension in Itachi’s shoulder and a minuscule twitch in Kasumi’s hand.  
“You need to become comfortable with the rest of Team Ro”, Kakashi explained nonetheless. “Teamwork can make the difference between failing or succeeding in a mission. Between life or death. You can’t work as a team, if you’re wary of the others.” He took a deep breath, so he could get the next words over his lips. “No one here cares about your clan. No one here cares about whether or not the Uchiha were part of the Kyūbi Attack.” Kasumi stiffened at that. _Finally, a reaction._  
“We know _you_ weren’t. This is your team. All we care about is how we treat each other. No name matters. No clan matters. This is ANBU and we have to trust each other blindly. Or we die.” Kakashi let his eyes travel over every single member of his team.  
“Is that understood?”  
“Hai!” They chorused in unison and with conviction. Kakashi nodded satisfied. 

With a fluid motion, Kakashi pushed his porcelain mask to the side to reveal his masked face. His bi-coloured eyes shaped in an unseen smile.  
“Good”, he said. “Then let’s have lunch together.”  
With that he sat down on the ground where he had stood and pulled a package with rice balls from his pouch. 

Not one to ever decline food, Kasumi was sitting next to Kakashi in an instant. Her mask pulled to the side, revealing the tiny smile she wore, as she rummaged through her pouch and pulled two scrolls from it. She held one scroll out and Itachi took it, as he sat down next to her.  
They shared a cute smile, which made Yūgao almost coo at them, as she sat down on Kakashi’s other side. The others joined them in a somewhat round circle, with the masks pushed to the side to reveal their faces and all some sort of small lunch with them.  
Kakashi could feel Kasumi take a deep breath next to him and he tilted his head to look at her. Curious about why she prepared herself mentally.  
“Ne~ Tenzō-senpai?”, she said in a voice, that sounded strangely vulnerable as it lacked all fabricated politeness. Tenzō looked up from his lunch, his slightly widened pupils indicating his surprise. “I think you’ve bruised one of my ribs.” “I…uh…sorry”, Tenzō stuttered out. For a lingering moment everything seemed to still. 

Then Kō burst out with laughter, followed by Yōji’s low chuckle and Kakashi could even hear Itachi laugh a little under his breath.  
Kakashi couldn’t help but to feel a tiny bit satisfied with that. Itachi and Kasumi were going to fit in with Team Ro quite right. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kakashi had dismissed them two hours after lunch. And while Itachi had been ordered to bring their father lunch into the police station, Kasumi was free to roam the streets. Yet again, she wore tight, tactical pants and a short yukata with the Uchiha crest on it’s back. Her hair was down and her long pony fell easily over her hitai-ate. She wasn’t yet certain, what she wanted to do.  
Usually she trained or studied or trained some more. But her mother had ordered her to get some down time and then pick up Sasuke from the Academy. Which was why she now aimlessly walked through the streets of Konohagakure. Her eyes travelled over the display of her favourite book store. Stopping for a moment, she took a book to read the summary on the back. An adventure novel set in the feudal era. Not really her cup of tea.  
She put it back and walked on. 

“Hey! Kasu-chan!”

Kasumi stopped and tilted her head. Her dark eyes travelled towards a dango shop, where Kotetsu waved enthusiastically at her. Izumo sat next to him, smiling softly as he nibbled on a dango.  
Without hesitating, Kasumi changed the course of her steps and headed towards her friends.  
“Izu-kun, Ko-kun”, she greeted and sat down next to them. A gentle smile, reserved for only few, turned the corners of her mouth up a bit.  
“So you’re a big fish now, eh?”, Izumo asked after he had finished chewing.  
Kasumi shrugged.  
“Of course, she is!”, Kotetsu yelled and threw an arm around Kasumi’s shoulders. “She’s Kasu-chan!” It got more attention form the shop keeper and other patrons, than Kasumi had wanted. Relaxed, smiling faces turned into grim looks and wary, tightly pressed together lips at the sight of her and the crest she displayed proudly. Kasumi felt the muscles in her back stiffen and she lifted her chin in defiance. The faint smile dropped from her lips and was replaced by a stoic, closed-off expression.  
“Eh, you look like your father again”, Izumo commented, but didn’t say anything more. He and Kotetsu had noticed how the Uchiha were treated within the village. Kasumi just shrugged and stood to go get herself a cup of green tea and some dango for Itachi. 

“Hello, I’d like some—”, she began, but was cut off by the shop keeper.  
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we’re out of dango”, he said, a provoking look in his eyes. Kasumi’s eyes slowly travelled to the display filled with dango in every flavour imaginable.  
“I see”, she said in a flat tone. “Thanks for your hospitality. Have a good day.” She tilted her head in a slight, almost mocking, bow and turned around.  
“OI!”, Kotetsu sprang from his place, half-eaten dango stick still in his hand.  
“That’s ridiculous, Hamachi-san”, Izumo chimed in, his face contorted in anger.  
Kasumi just walked past them, her head held high and her gait confident. “Izu-kun. Ko-kun. Thanks, but that’s not necessary”, she said, as she passed them.  
“Not nece—”, Kotetsu repeated, caught in between anger and surprise at Kasumi’s reaction. He ran after her, while Izumo hastily threw some money on the table to pay, before he followed his friends out of the shop.  
“It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last”, Kasumi said stoically. The pang in her heart was hard to ignore.  
“Doesn’t make it right”, Izumo said lowly. Kasumi swallowed.  
“No”, she whispered, so only her friends could hear her. “No, it doesn’t.”  
“Well”, Kotetsu said with an air of importance around him. “You got us, right? Who needs dango, anyway!” He again threw an arm around Kasumi, their difference in hight making it rather easy for him to lean a bit on her. This time, Izumo joined and crushed Kasumi’s other side to him, effectively trapping her between her two former team mates.  
It didn’t make the animosity of the village any better, but Kasumi could feel a tiny smile play around her lips, as her heart grew a bit lighter. This was, what she wanted to protect. No matter how she was treated.

They got dango and green tea at another shop. The shop keeper not much happier about Kasumi than the other, but at least, he wasn’t about to turn down business. They had sat down on a bench outside the Academy gates and just caught up with each other. Kasumi felt at ease, the small smile coming easier with every passing minute she spent with her friends.  
But soon enough, they had to leave for their guard duty and that left Kasumi alone with still two hours until the Academy would finish. _Ma~_  
She let her head fall into her neck and looked at the blue sky above her. Not quite sure, what to do with the time she had, but not brave enough to actively go against her mother’s instructions and train some jutsu, she compromised on reading. So she pulled a scroll from the pouch she had strapped to her right leg and began studying the basics of fūton.

Kakashi shook his head from his high perch on the roof opposite to where Kasumi sat.  
He had just been out for a stroll to the book shop, when he had sensed the chakra of his youngest rookie and he had been curious. It was a bit unsettling to see her so comfortable with Izumo and Kotetsu, but Kakashi figured, that they had been on a Genin team together, despite the age difference. What rubbed him in just the wrong way was, that she had perfected a mask at such a young age. He had seen the same mask on Itachi’s, but not as…firm. Itachi was a bit softer, a bit more forgiving. Kakashi was certain, that Kasumi would remember _exactly_ who had treated her how.  
It reminded him a bit too much of Fugaku. And that was not a man to be trifled with. 

She had free time, time to meet with friends or read or paint, do whatever she wanted…and she studied.  
For a second, he felt like a hypocrite. When Kakashi had been her age, he had been just like that. Nothing but training and honing his skills had mattered. He was all too aware why that had been the case…  
So it made him curious, why exactly Itachi and Kasumi were like they were. Why were they so much like him? What motivated them? It couldn’t just be a prodigy thing, could it?  
_Ah._ He pulled a little orange book from his hip pouch and started reading, his senses partially locked on the girl a few meters away. _He would just have to find out, wouldn’t he?_

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

The only thing to be heard was the clanking of chopsticks against porcelain. Dinners at the Uchiha household were, after all, a quiet affair since the Kyūbi Attack.  
Their mother sometimes would attempt to make a bit of small talk, but not on a bad day. Kasumi had found her kneeling over a tumbled over stack of boxes, when she had come back home with a beaming Sasuke clinging to her hand. Pictures strewn on the ground all around their mother, that held bright smiles and fiery red hair.  
Kasumi had told Sasuke to start setting the table, before she had knelt down next to her mother and gathered the pictures with gentle fingers. Her mother had given her a watery smile in thanks and had excused herself to the bathroom.  
It was always a bad day, when Uchiha Mikoto remembered her best friend and the tragic fate, that had befallen her. 

“How are you progressing?”, their father asked and without him addressing anyone properly, Itachi and Kasumi knew, that they were meant. They shared a short look.  
“We defeated our new team in a game of protect-the-flag today, otō-san”, Kasumi answered, her dark eyes turning from her brother to their father. As much as Itachi handled talking to everyone else, Kasumi always was the one to talk to their father. They were similar in so many ways and Fugaku took so much pride in that, that he was a bit less harsh to his daughter, than to his sons.  
“How long did it take you?”, he wanted to know and Kasumi licked her lips in worry, before she answered.  
“About five minutes from the signal to start”, she replied. Her father finally looked up, his dark eyes boring into hers. Then he nodded and Kasumi knew, that she saw a hint of pride in the curl of his lips.  
Itachi shared another look with Kasumi. “Otō-san?”, he then addressed quietly. Their father’s hard eyes turned towards his eldest.  
“Would you allow Kasumi and me to train with Shisui-san after dinner?”, Itachi asked. Fugaku’s left eye twitched a bit. As much as Shisui was considered someone to bring pride to the Uchiha clan, their father did decidedly not approve of the elder boy’s un-Uchiha-like character.  
“It would help to increase our speed”, Kasumi chimed in.  
“That it would”, Fugaku mused, his dark eyes landing again on his daughter. “You may go.”  
“Thank you, otō-san”, Itachi and Kasumi chorused.  
Sasuke immediately perked up. “Me, too”, he said. “Please, let me train with Ita-nee and Sumi-nee!”  
Their father looked at his youngest and for a second, Kasumi saw the wrinkles around his eye smoothing out a bit. “No”, he then said and went back to eating.  
“You could get hurt, Sasuke-chan”, Kasumi followed up to soften the blow for her younger brother. Their father meant well, even if he didn’t show it.  
“You can help me with the dishes, Sasuke-chan”, their mother said with a tiny, shaky smile at the enthusiasm of her children. Her smile became a bit more steady, when Sasuke puffed out his cheeks in a pout. 

The rest of the meal was held in silence again and Kasumi was kind of glad, to have Shisui’s vibrant personality to look forward to. Just when Itachi and her were about to excuse themselves, their father looked up from the bowls he placed in the sink.  
“We are invited to have tea with Hyūga-san tomorrow afternoon”, Fugaku said, his dark eyes fixed on his two eldest. “I expect both of you to attend.”  
“Hai, otō-san”, Kasumi said with a light bow of her head and then she ushered Itachi outside of the kitchen. 

Her brother gave a tiny sigh, as they made their way through the compound towards the private Uchiha training grounds. They walked so close to each other, that their shoulder brushed every once in a while. Their chakras mingled naturally. It was comforting in such a primal, basic way, that Kasumi couldn’t imagine a time not able to do that.  
She knew, that being in ANBU had drastically upped the chances of being killed in action. They both knew that. They both also knew, that they were freakishly good at what they did. So as arrogant as it may sound, Kasumi did not expect to ever not be able to have her twin, _her other half_ , with her at any given moment. It was just not a thought, that ever occurred to her.

“You know tomorrow is going to be…formal”, Itachi said lowly. _They’re honing us again._  
Kasumi sighed. “Yes”, she answered and brushed her shoulder against his. “And we suffer through it as always.” _We are the heirs, there’s no way around it._  
Itachi gave her a look. _I’m the older one. There’s no ‘we’._  
“Don’t pout, Ita-kun”, Kasumi smiled a bit slyly. _I know, I’m off the hook!_ “I’ll always be with you.”  
Itachi breathed out a sigh again. _I know._ His chakra embraced hers in an intimate hug. 

“Stop being weird you two.”

The smile in Shisui’s voice was as obvious as the slight teasing. He had always found the connection Itachi and Kasumi shared amusing. A bit odd, but amusing.  
He sat in the middle of the training ground, wide smile on his lips and his legs crossed comfortably.  
“You two spar”, he then said and shunshinned next to them. “No sharingan. I’ll analyse.”

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

TRIVIA:

Kasumi’s ease with kenjutsu comes from training with Shisui and his Body Flicker Technique.  
She doesn’t need her sharingan activated anymore for most of the time she fights with a katana, because Shisui and her trained to get better without using it.  
The sharingan is, after all, not only a powerful weapon, but also dangerous if used too much. Shisui knew that and trained Itachi and Kasumi in fighting without the added advantage.

This training later enabled Itachi to fight Sasuke almost completely blind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya,
> 
> I'm not actually happy with this chapter. Fight scenes are the bane of my writing existence! And the whole chapter feels a bit...off. But honestly, I have no idea what it is...the next chapters are better, I promise!  
> It doesn't help, though, that Itachi is freaking OP as fuck and I have to try really hard to make Kasumi equal to him without her being a damn Mary Sue. I sincerely hope, that I achieve that ambitious goal?
> 
> Also a lot of Kakashi in this, because I felt like it. He's not yet 'soft' and all dork-y, but team work has a big place in his character already. At least I guess, he'd be at that stage of character development. He _is_ 20 and I think I can give him some common sense at that age...
> 
> Lately, I also got inspired to write those little trivia tidbits. Hope you like them?
> 
> Last, but certainly not least:  
>  _THANK YOU so much for how you took to Chasing Red Camellias. I'm a bit blown away by it actually.  
>  THANKS to everyone, who left kudos!  
> THANKS to already two-digit subscriptions!  
> THANKS to Zayane and Shogun for commenting, I **appreciate** that!  
> You guys rock!_
> 
> Read ya soon,  
> Murphy
> 
> PS.: I'm really, really _sorry_ for that god-awful Protect-the-flag business in this chapter. It's...not my strong suit. Really not. I'm...working on it. Promise.


	3. Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Kasumi slowly get into a routine as ANBU and as months go by, they decide something has to be done about the talk of a coup d'état within the Uchiha clan.  
> Meanwhile, Kakashi and Kasumi have their first mission as a two-men cell together and Kasumi asks for advice.

The next morning found Kasumi and Itachi at the ANBU commission desk. Kakashi had sent them there the moment they had stepped into the locker room to change. As composed as Kasumi was on the outside, she was a tiny bit giddy on the inside. Not that she would ever acknowledge it. She was an Uchiha. But it made her a bit happy to know, that their trial phase was already over and they would get their place on the regular mission roaster of Team Ro.  
Maybe it was a craving for approval. Maybe it was just the knowledge, that she definitely wouldn’t end up as a demure housewife now. 

There had been a point in her life — about five years ago — when she had stormed into her father’s study, eyes blazing with a roaring fire and tiny hands clenched into fists. Itachi had told her, that he had been enrolled into the Academy just moments before. So she had stood in front of her father and had _demanded_ to know, why she wasn’t also enrolled, when even her mother was a jōnin, though retired. He had looked at her sternly, if a bit surprised — as if he was seeing her for the first time truly — and had started to explain, that there never had been a woman born into the main family to become a kunoichi; that it was considered too dangerous for the clan line.  
Young Kasumi had fumed and had told him in no uncertain terms, that she would request a medic to make her barren, if he wouldn’t allow her to take the path of a ninja. In hindsight, she had been a bit dramatic about it all, but her father had just looked at her for a long time and then he had nodded.  
The next day, Kasumi had been enrolled and started the Academy a month later together with her twin. It was a week in, when Fugaku knew he had made the right choice as he had to listen to a teacher complaining, that Kasumi had positively _flattened_ a boy of her class after mocking her for being a girl. Needless to say, the teacher wasn’t as pleased as Fugaku. 

The Elders had thrown a fit about it all, but Young Kasumi had sworn to herself to be the best ninja she could possibly be. Just so she could rub it into their faces every waking minute of her life.  
To this day, her gender was at times a tricky topic. One, that even Itachi tried to stay clear off. 

Just as Tenzō had already warned Kasumi, the regular ANBU missions weren’t _that_ spectacular. The irregular missions were, no question, but for a night shift guarding Uzumaki Naruto or patrolling around the village’s walls…well, they wouldn’t startle her out of her sleep.  
Without so much as looking at her brother, Kasumi held her rotation sheet out. Without missing a beat, Itachi had done the same, so they could cross-reference their schedule. As expected for rookies like them, they would be mainly on guard duty for apparently the next months or so. Kasumi wanted to scoff. As if they wouldn’t pull them off those within the next few weeks. Sharingan users were precious and scarce within the ANBU, after all. And Itachi and her were _exceptional_ at using their kekkei genkai. 

“You’ll miss tea with the Hyūga”, Itachi said, as Kasumi handed him his sheet back.  
“Ah”, Kasumi nodded in affirmation, not quite unhappy with the predicament.  
Itachi shot her a look. _Don’t be so happy about this!_  
Kasumi smiled a tiny, genuine smile and let her chakra playfully jab at Itachi’s, just as they entered the training ground usually reserved for members of Team Ro.  
_Don’t forget to wear your formal yukata._ Her smile seemed to say. Itachi looked a tiny bit sourly. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

There was a surprisingly mundane routine to being ANBU. Kasumi hadn’t expected that, but after two months of waking up early, changing in the locker room, training with Team Ro and shifts on either guarding Uzumaki Naruto or patrolling the village perimeter, Kasumi found, that it was strangely repetitive. It fit so perfectly into her day to day routine, that it almost baffled her.  
Clan meetings, training with Shisui, training with Itachi, spending time with Sasuke, dealing with clan politics…it all fell nicely into the schedule the ANBU dictated. Until they were cleared for more pressing, more dangerous missions, that was, of course. Up until then, everything felt…almost easy.

Nonetheless, Kasumi was restless. There were now whole districts within the village, where the Uchiha weren’t welcome anymore. Some vendors even put up signs with their clan symbol crossed out. ANBU started lurking around the Military Police Station like guarding details in a prison. And the clan meetings became more acidic and filled with hatred each passing week. Even Shisui became more distant during their training and maybe that was, what hurt Kasumi the most. Though it wasn’t what worried her the most.  
Something big was brewing and Kasumi didn’t like it. The looks Itachi shared with her, told her enough to know, that he didn’t like it either. 

The day, that marked their third month within ANBU found them both sitting next to each other on a branch of a tree, looking down at their training team mates. They sat close together, their shoulders touching and their chakra mingling like one. Kasumi let her gaze roam beyond the training ground to where she could see the village’s core in the distance.  
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”, she said lowly, so only her twin could understand her. _It’s worth protecting._  
“A fragile beauty”, Itachi nodded. _There’s something brewing. Something big._  
Kasumi turned her head to look at her brother. Her eyes depths of love and fear. _Our clan is brewing up a war._  
Itachi nodded. His chakra gently caressing his sister’s anxiously swirling one in an attempt to comfort her.  
“A beauty we need to protect”, Kasumi murmured after a while. _We need to do something about our clan._  
Itachi looked at her for a moment, then he turned his head to direct his gaze towards the blue sky above them.  
“Hai.”

_  
_

During the next weeks Kasumi tried to subtly influence her father into negotiations with the Sandaime. She tried to argue, that bloodshed only led to more bloodshed and an uprising of the Uchiha would inevitably lead to a civil war within Hi no Kuni.  
It was a futile endeavour. 

Itachi and her spent more time training only the two of them, isolating themselves from their clan unintentionally. They couldn’t bear the Curse of Hatred burning away, what had finally become a clan filled with love and unity. Fear grabbed their hearts, whenever they had Sasuke with them. Sweet, little Sasuke. He and the other children of the clan would be those, who’d suffer the most.  
Because as powerful as the Uchiha clan was…they couldn’t hope to stand a chance against the combined forces of all of Konoha. Especially not, when neither Itachi nor Kasumi had any inclination to fight alongside their kin. 

They struggled. Together and each of them individually.  
Kasumi loved her family. She loved her clan. She even loved their pride. Kasumi loved her father and loved her mother and she would go to hell and back for her brothers. But as weeks flew by without her making any progress in changing her clan’s thirst for vengeance against their treatment, Kasumi began to realise, that she wouldn’t be able to save them all. _She had to choose._  
When Itachi came into her room one evening, his expression grave and he just slipped under her blanket in need of her body next to his, Kasumi knew, that he had come to the same conclusion. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

“Where’s your head, Kasumi?”

Kasumi blinked and looked to her left, just to find the inquisitive stare of her taichō boring into her eyes. They sat both on a tree branch, observing the guard shifts of the temple beneath them. For three days now, they had observed the temple to find a pattern in the shifts and analyse a weakness.  
Six months into her ANBU career, this marked the first mission she tag-teamed with only her taichō. Usually it was Kō or Tenzō, who were her mission partners. Sometimes Yōji, because as brilliant as Kasumi was, her sensory range wasn’t that impressive to be honest. And her kenjutsu skills were too similar to Yūgao’s to pair them together more often. 

She couldn’t see much of Kakashi due to the masks they wore, but she could hear the chiding in his voice and see the slight amusement in his bi-coloured eyes.  
“I was wondering, whether we’d be out of their range by dinner”, she lied easily, although she knew, that Kakashi would be able to see the lie. She also knew, that he wouldn’t push her to reveal her thoughts.  
“Just keep alert”, he huffed, as Kasumi had expected. She simply nodded and turned her head back to the temple.  
The plan was to sneak in during the next guard change. Kasumi was to incapacitate the guard with genjutsu, while Kakashi would switch the scroll they were after with a fake one. 

When Kakashi gave the signal with a simple sign of one hand, Kasumi shunshined to the closest guard. Her Sharingan spun and the first guard slumped against the wall in a deep slumber.  
Kasumi wasn’t cruel and since they didn’t have an order to kill, she went to the next guard to send him into a peaceful genjutsu as well. A pleasant dream would make sure, that the guards thought they had fallen asleep during duty. They would be too embarrassed to say anything about it, possibly even fearing for their position, and thus the exact time the scroll was stolen would remain a mystery.  
Between Kakashi and Kasumi, the mission was ridiculously easy and it didn’t take longer than five minutes until they were save on their way back to Hi no Kuni.

They ran at high speed through the forest. Their steps secure, as they pushed their bodies from one branch to the other.  
“Kakashi-taichō”, Kasumi suddenly caught Kakashi’s attention. He looked at her running next to him. Hair flying in a wild ponytail and arms held behind her to stabilise her fast run.  
“Hai?”, he acknowledged her.  
“You said team work is the most important thing for a ninja”, Kasumi began hesitantly, what caused Kakashi’s brows to furrow slightly beneath the porcelain mask. “That our comrades are more important, than the mission.”  
She tilted her head for a second to see, if he was listening. His crackling chakra a not yet entirely familiar feeling next to her, so that she hadn’t yet been able to decipher emotions from it. But he seemed curious enough to humour her. 

“Where do you draw the line, though?”, Kasumi asked, her eyes stubbornly fixed ahead. Kakashi shot her another look. _Where was this coming from?_  
“What do you mean?”, he enquired, not quite certain where the conversation was heading. Kasumi’s chakra seemed to swirl a bit faster underneath her skin. It felt a bit anxious.  
“Say, one of your most trusted comrades — Tenzō, for example”, she began and the scowl on Kakashi’s face deepened. Tenzō and him made a conscious effort not to seem too close to each other. That she had picked up on their relationship regardless…  
“Say, he betrayed the mission. For example opening the scroll we just stole, although we shouldn’t. What would you do?”  
Kakashi didn’t have to ponder long about it. “Well, I guess I’d tell the Sandaime and see, that he would be punished according to the crime”, he answered.  
“And if he killed one of his own team mates? Or if he sabotaged a mission? What then?”, she pushed further.  
“Ah”, Kakashi said, when he figured what she was aiming for. “You mean to ask, where to draw the line with betrayal?”  
“Hai”, her answer was short and hard.  
“Why?”  
Kasumi’s next step almost missed the branch. But she had caught herself quickly. Kakashi had noticed it, though. There wasn’t much he _didn’t_ notice, really.  
“Because I want to understand, what it means to be a ninja of Konohagakure, I guess”, she answered and this time, Kakashi didn’t know whether it was a lie or not.  
“I guess it depends on the crime committed”, he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “If the safety of the village was to be severely threatened, for example, then that is something I can’t forgive.”  
Kasumi tilted her head to him again, scrutinising him from beneath her mask for a moment, before she turned her gaze back ahead.  
“Would you kill him for that?”

Kakashi would never admit it, but he was relieved when he felt hostile chakra signatures enter his range before he had to answer that question.  
“Six hostile incoming. Three o’clock”, he bit out instead. His body instinctively dropped into a fighting stance and he opened his left eye to let his sharingan see.

Kasumi shot past him, katana at the ready and her shunshin faster, than he had seen it before. _Hadn’t Itachi said, that they trained with Shunshin no Shisui?_ Kakashi blocked a senbon flying his way, easily. A stinging smell lingering in the air for the fraction of a second.  
“Poison”, he called out to Kasumi. In an instant, she blew a wave of harsh wind at the multiple senbon flying their way. _Huh, that was new._  
Kakashi pulled shuriken from his pouch and retaliated in equal to their opponents. Of course, they didn’t do much damage. Their opponents were skilled.  
Hitai-ate from Kusa, specialised weaponry, flak jackets. Most likely jōnin-levelled.  
He made a clone to substitute for him, just as Kasumi shunshined next to one of the attacking Kusa-nin. Steel gleamed in the dying light of the sun.  
Then blood splattered. A gurgling sound. A thud.

But Kakashi was already focusing on his own opponents. He ducked underneath a powerful swing with a long sword, just to take a shunshin forward and ram his kunai into the soft tissue of his opponent’s throat. Warmth splattered over his mask and what little of his skin was exposed. Kakashi looked around for a second, observing how his clone distracted another Kusa-nin so Kasumi could go in for the kill. He noticed, that she didn’t use her katon in the fight, neither shuriken or kunai. Only her just recently acquired fūton and her katana. Clever kid. The corpses would point towards Suna and not Konoha.  
His hair stood on end, as he felt a powerful chakra shoot past him. Wind blades compressed to thin little needles swished past him to embed themselves into his next opponent. Kakashi swiftly went in with another precise stab of his kunai.  
Metal clang against metal as the Kusa-nin blocked the attack. Kakashi let the kunai fall into his other hand, surprising his opponent. A second later, warm blood pooled over his non-dominant hand, as he had rammed the kunai in the fifth intercostal space and forced the kunai in an upwards motion, effectively piercing his opponent’s heart.  
Next thing he saw was Kasumi swinging at the last opponent. She missed. Or rather, the Kusa-nin barely dodged, her blade only cutting the skin on his shoulder.  
A gleam of steel.  
Kakashi’s muscles coiled and snapped within the fraction of a moment.

He grunted, when the kunai embedded itself in his lower back. But his eyes were fixed on the small figure shielded by his taller body.  
A set of dark eyes beneath a porcelain mask widened slightly. Then Kasumi was gone.

Kakashi heard a blade sing and then another thud. 

His muscles tensed, when he felt a presence appear behind him. A second later, he recognised the chakra signature and relaxed again.  
“I’ll remove the kunai now, Kakashi-taichō”, Kasumi said utterly calm from behind him. “Please prepare yourself.” Kakashi held his breath and the next moment an uncomfortable sting shot up to his left shoulder and down his left leg.  
“It’s thankfully not that bad and there’s no poison, but I’m not particularly good at iryō-jutsu, so please bear with me, taichō”, the soft voice of his team mate wafted to Kakashi’s ears. Only a moment later, he felt the warm, prickling sensation of medical jutsu.

“I think this will do.”  
Kakashi turned as soon as he didn’t feel the prickling sensation anymore. Kasumi stood next to him, her uniform and mask splattered with crimson blood slowly turning darker, until it would be a brown crust on the clothes. It was a bit of an eerie sight, but one Kakashi has grown familiar with. Itachi wasn’t that much taller than her after all.  
“You good?”, Kakashi asked nonetheless, as he straightened his back and tested out how much pain moving caused him.  
“I should ask you this, taichō”, she countered and he could just feel her disapproving stare on him. “There’s no need to take a kunai for me. I’m perfectly capable of—”  
“I know”, Kakashi cut her off, his eyes darting to Kasumi for a second, before he assessed the damage around them. “But you’re my team mate and I protect my team mates.” That seemed to shut her up pretty effectively.  
“I found this on one of them”, she said instead of arguing further and handed him a scroll with a distinctive seal on it. “They were a jōnin squad on their way back from a mission in Suna.”  
“Ah”, Kakashi nodded, his eyes skimming over the Suna insignia on the scroll. “That’s why you used only fūton and your katana. It would be logical for Suna-nin to follow them. Quick thinking.”  
“Hai”, Kasumi simply said, completely ignoring the praise. It probably wasn’t much of a praise anyway. Her and Itachi were brilliant minds. Kakashi knew from experience, that it came naturally and thus was nothing one as them wanted to be praised for.  
“Come”, he then ordered, after he put the Suna-scroll in one of his pouches. “If we hurry, we’re back on home soil for dinner.”  
Kakashi smiled a bit, as he heard a tiny sigh come from her, clearly recognising his little jab at her previous lie.

The rest of their mission went smoothly and they arrived back in Konoha two days later.  
As soon as they had entered the locker room of Team Ro, they both stripped out of their ruined flak jackets. Kasumi sighed inwardly, as she looked at the dried blood on it. This would be a nightmare to get out of the material. She only heard soft rustling of fabric, as Kakashi removed his ruined uniform behind her.  
It was a standing rule within the locker room, that everyone minded their own business and kept their eyes on their locker. It had taken a while and Itachi was still not very happy about it, but by now Kasumi felt comfortable to strip out of her trousers and into a pair of tight combat pants. Her under armour had blood on it’s collar, so she stripped out of that too and slid into a shirt and her kimono blouse.  
Judging by the lack of noise, Kakashi had finished changing earlier than her. Kasumi turned to see him casually leaning against the lockers, his back towards her.  
“Taichō”, she addressed him to let him know he could look again. Kakashi tilted his head to look over his shoulder, single sharingan gleaming in the dimly lit room.  
“I will report to Danzō-sama and bring him this”, he said and held up the scroll they had stolen, as well as the Suna-scroll. “You’re dismissed.”  
“Hai, Kakashi-taichō”, Kasumi nodded and walked past him to exit the locker room. She felt his eyes on her the whole way.

“Kasumi.”  
The girl stopped right in front of the door and turned. Kakashi had a pensive expression on his face, heavy-lidded eyes boring into her in a way, that made her want to squirm. But she was an Uchiha and Uchiha did not squirm.  
“That question you asked…”, he began in a low tone. “The answer is ‘yes’. I would kill him.”  
Kasumi’s eyes widened a fraction, barely visible, if one didn’t pay as close attention as Kakashi did.  
Then she bowed her head slightly. “Thank you for being honest with me, taichō”, she said, still not fully broken out of her overly-polite mannerisms. Especially not around him. “I will leave first.”  
With that she left a pondering Kakashi. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi entered the Uchiha compound through the main gate. She looked up at the Uchiha guards stationed on the roofs, their chakra signatures well-hidden. On the roof opposite to the main gate, Kasumi felt the faint chakra signatures of ANBU. A few years ago, there hadn’t been guards. There hadn’t been the need for them. On either side. A crow flew past, diverting her attention, as her dark eyes followed it’s flight.  
Maybe she should see, if Shisui was around. Sasuke was still at the Academy and at the ANBU building they had told her, that Itachi had been dispatched on a mission a day ago. His first solo mission as an ANBU. Although she knew, that there was no reason to worry…she did worry nonetheless. Just like Itachi had worried when she had been on her first ANBU solo mission two weeks ago. 

Eventually Kasumi found her way onto the porch, that overlooked the koi pond her father loved so much. The beautiful fish lazily drifted beneath the rippling surface. Kasumi sat down, held her face into the sun and closed her eyes. She felt almost content.  
She was a proud kunoichi of Konohagakure. And even more pride resided in the fact, that she was an Uchiha. Old blood. Powerful blood. 

_The answer is ‘yes’._

How much was her pride worth, when lives were at stake, though?

_I would kill him._

She opened her eyes and lazily blinked against the blue sky. It would be there no matter what. Whether her clan would try to overthrow the Hokage or not. Whether she would stop it or not. Blood would be spilt either way, Kasumi knew that. And who was she to choose whose blood would be spilt?  
Wasn’t it the circle of life to be born and die? Men and women alike, civilians and ninja, childre— 

Kasumi’s head fell down, a small frown burrowing a line in between her brows.  
The children would suffer the most, if there was to be a civil war. It were always the children, that suffered.  
She remembered the suffering. The crippling fear. The nauseating screams from injured ninja. The stench in the hospital. War wasn’t pretty.  
And Kasumi had sworn, that she would do anything in her power to stop a war from ever happening again. Wasn’t that her ninja way, her Nindō? Hers and Itachi’s? Had she lost her way already…?

“Nee~ Kasu-chan? Why are you so glum?”

Kasumi was proud, that she did not jump in fright. The line between her brows smoothed out as she looked up and into the smiling face of Shisui. In this moment, he seemed to Kasumi as if he was a second sun, chasing away those dark clouds around her head.  
“Just pondering the meaning of life”, Kasumi answered casually, a tiny smile curling around her lips despite herself. For a second Shisui looked concerned and Kasumi knew, that he wouldn’t forget about it, even if he may not press the topic now. He widened his smile some more, his eyes wrinkling and closing half-way with it.  
“Why don’t you ponder your shunshin speed with me, instead?”, he asked warmly and extended his hand down towards Kasumi to help her stand up.  
“I guess, I’d like that”, the girl said and took his offered hand. It was warm and comforting, just like his chakra. With a strong pull, Shisui had her standing. 

“You know, I might be up for promotion to jōnin”, Shisui started to rattle on to distract her from whatever bothered her, as they walked over the porch, their steps silent and careful.  
“That’s amazing, Shisui-kun”, Kasumi smiled at him, her eyes meeting his with honest praise.  
“Ah…hehe”, he grinned and scratched the back of his neck, a slight dust of pink on his cheeks. “It’s nothing, really.”  
“It’s not nothing”, Kasumi rejected his dismissal instantly. “I know, you’ve worked hard for this. You deserve it more than most.”  
“I’m just trying to make the clan proud”, Shisui said a bit embarrassed. Kasumi huffed at that, eliciting a strange look from Shisui at her improper mannerism.  
“This is not about the clan, Shisui-kun”, she said sternly, her gaze firmly set ahead. For a scarily long moment, Shisui felt reminded of Fugaku.  
“This is about you”, Kasumi elaborated with a small gesture towards him. “About _your_ accomplishment. About how hard _you_ worked for this. It is expected of us to be nothing less than _exceptional_.” She huffed again. “We are Uchiha. So of course, making jōnin or ANBU is not really such a big feat, is it now?” She shot him a surprisingly wry smile. A bit of her bitterness from before still clinging to her words. Maybe ANBU had changed her already.  
“For what it’s worth”, she said lowly and averted her gaze again. “ _I_ am proud of you, Shisui-kun.” Kasumi was a bit embarrassed about her words. But Shisui was her friend and as humble as he was, becoming jōnin at his age and especially during the current times, was impressive. She needed him to know that. 

A warm, heavy hand gently landed on her head. Shisui leaned down to be closer to her, a small, utterly genuine smile on his lips and his eyes looking at nothing but her.  
“Thanks, Kasu-chan”, he said softly. “It’s worth a lot.” Kasumi felt her cheeks heat up.  
“Eh”, she dismissed as gracefully as possible. “What did you say about shunshin, again?”  
“Ne~, ne~, Kasu-chan”, Shisui let go of her and grinned his beaming smile. “Are you embarrassed?”  
“Of course not”, Kasumi said curtly, but she could feel the heat burning in her cheeks. They were probably as brightly glowing as a sharingan by now. Shisui’s bright laughter followed her, as she shunshined away from him and to the training ground. He still had an amused smile on his lips, when he appeared right next to her and they started training.  
_Baka._ Kasumi couldn’t help but to smile.

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Training with Shisui definitely had made Kasumi faster. She appeared in the Hokage’s office almost a full two seconds before her twin. Both were clad in their ANBU gear but with their masks pushed to the side and immediately crouched down in a submissive position. One knee on the ground, their heads lowered.  
“Sandaime-sama”, they said in unison.  
Sarutobi Hiruzen stood at the window of his office, his back turned towards the two young Uchiha, as his eyes travelled across the village. Dusk was settling over the roofs and the brightly orange glow of the setting sun dipped everything into a faint golden light. He took a pull from his pipe and puffed the smoke out. 

“You requested a meeting”, he said, his voice rough and weathered.  
Neither Itachi nor Kasumi dared to look at each other. Their chakras mingled to assure themselves, that they were doing the right thing. But for a second Kasumi hesitated.  
They could stop their treason now. Before the words were spoken. Before they would damn at least parts of their clan to death. Including their father.

“The Uchiha are planning a coup d’état”, Itachi said, his voice firm and unwavering.  
Kasumi exhaled a shaky breath. It was done. There was no way back now.

The Hokage did not turn towards them, but they could see him lowering his head almost as if in defeat.  
“I feared as much”, he said. Kasumi wet her lips. “The animosities from the villagers have grown, haven’t they?”  
“It is…unpleasant”, Kasumi answered. “But what actually causes the hatred to simmer is—” She stopped mid-sentence. “May I speak openly, Sandaime-sama?”, she asked instead of finishing the thought.  
“You may”, came the answer and with that, the Hokage turned around to look at them.  
“The problem is the distrust from the Council and at times, yourself, Sandaime-sama”, Kasumi explained in a flat tone. Despite her crouched position, she seemed as tall as the room, her voice filling every corner, her eyes fixed on the Hokage. “We know the ANBU have shifts to watch us. We notice the cases pulled from the Military Police Force, because they could be related to the Kyūbi Attack or are considered too delicate to the village. We see how others are promoted before an Uchiha. Most of the Clan Elders can’t accept, that it will take time to regain the trust our whole clan has apparently lost.”  
Hiruzen noted, that while Itachi spoke in a detached way about his clan, Kasumi still held onto the singular plural form.  
“Blunt and to the point as always, Kasumi-san”, the Sandaime said. “And correct, as usual.”  
“We are not asking for you to take officially the Uchiha side, Sandaime-sama”, Itachi spoke up. “The clan is too far gone for that to change anything. Kasumi and I want to ensure the least bloodshed possible.”

The Sandaime looked down at the crouching twins. So young still and such a burden on their shoulders. To betray their own clan like that… Their Will of Fire was admirable and yet…in this instance, it saddened him to see it burn so brightly. It would cause them a heartbreak unimaginable, if they couldn’t spark that same fire within the rest of their clan.  
“Maybe bloodshed can be avoided”, he said and turned away from them. “Uchiha Shisui has already informed me about the treason of your clan.”  
Kasumi’s eyes widened and her mouth formed the name. Even Itachi’s chakra seemed to spike in surprise.  
“For now”, the Hokage continued, “work with him, observe and report back to me.”  
“Hai, Sandaime-sama”, came the two-voiced answer. He felt a flicker of warm chakra and both vanished. A sudden cold crept into the office.

A deep sigh broke from his lips. Maybe he should find a successor. He was getting tired of the politics, that came with his position. Especially politics involving the Uchiha. That was always messy and too emotional.  
He took another deep pull from his pipe. He had to speak with Danzō about the situation. Something had to be done. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

TRIVIA:

Uchiha Mikoto and Uzumaki Kushina met at a B-rank mission, when Kushina was a chūnin and Mikoto led the mission as a jōnin.  
They were close friends ever since then, despite Mikoto being nine years older. Fugaku and Minato never quite saw eye to eye, though, but they never dared to tell their wives.  
Kushina adored Itachi and Kasumi, which ultimately led her to wish for a child of her own.  
Kushina and Mikoto secretly wished, that their children would marry, so they’d be officially family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya guys,
> 
> here's another chapter!  
> Thank you so much for all the support you're showing _Chasing Red Camellias_!
> 
> This is a bit of a time crunch chapter...as will be the next one. But I hope you can still feel, how things progress?  
> Also a bit of Kakashi and Kasumi action in this one. Their first mission as a two-men cell!  
> I really hope, Kakashi is somewhat in character?
> 
> And can I just say, that I simply _adore_ Shisui?
> 
> As always, I'd love to hear feedback from you. It helps so much and really makes me proud!
> 
> Read ya soon,  
> Murphy
> 
> PS.: Kasumi's still too young for romance, but nonetheless Happy Valentine's Day!  
> PPS.: Sorry for the fight scene....I'm still not happy with them. But I just don't get them right.....there's still much I have to learn.


	4. Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's including a bit of a time jump. And some fluff! Believe it or not, there is fluff in between all the sorrow.

Kasumi sat on a branch, one leg hanging down, the other propped up and her back comfortably rested against the trunk. The mask over her face a familiar weight and effective hiding device. Her dark eyes gleaming from beneath the eye slits could be anyone’s after all. As long as she didn’t activate her sharingan, no one would know she was an Uchiha. Which was a dangerous thing these days.  
If she was without the mask, she was either Uchiha Kasumi, resented by the village and shunned by fellow ninja or she was Uchiha Kasumi, heiress to the clan head and surrounded by stifling hatred. Not really choices Kasumi liked, so she had started to hide behind the mask.  
By her twelfth birthday, she had accepted more missions, than even her taichō had in his first year. By her thirteenth birthday, she was accumulating A-rank missions like beads on a pearl necklace. Mostly solo, because Team Ro was in high demand for their famed skill and deploying two members on a mission, that could be achieved by one, was increasingly difficult to explain.

In those last years, there hadn’t been many places, Kasumi had felt at ease.  
Not with her clan, thirsty for blood and preparing a strike against the very foundations of what Konohagakure stood for.  
Not on the streets and alleys of her home, where the villagers had grown more wary than ever before, subconsciously feeling the tension between the Uchiha and…everyone else.  
Not in her own room, where her thoughts spun on end on how to sway her father away from the bloodshed.  
Not with other ninja, who eyed every Uchiha with distrust to such an extent, that Uchiha were now mainly put on teams with other Uchiha. Or doing solo missions. Their mortality rate had increased drastically.  
And not with the Hokage, whenever Itachi or her reported to him, because they knew they were only pawns in a larger game.  
Back to back missions on the other hand…they were easy. With the mask over her face, Kasumi could breath better.

Her dark eyes drifted from the classroom she was observing to the vibrantly green leaves of the trees close by. It would be time for Tōrō Nagashi soon, the Floating Lantern Festival.  
Once that would have elicited a smile on her lips and a warmth in her stomach. There was a large, beautiful meadow within the Uchiha compound, prettily lining her father’s koi pound at one side. She remembered picnics with her family. Laughter and paper lanterns drifting in the night sky like fireflies. She remembered Shisui smiling sweetly at her. She remembered Itachi pulling her and Sasuke into a tight hug. The content smile of their mother.  
There wouldn’t be a family picnic this year. And Kasumi could only hope, that there would be enough left of her family to have a proper Floating Lantern Festival another year.

A tiny, almost wistful smile tugged at her lips, when her eyes travelled back to observe the insides of the classroom. Sasuke had grown so much.  
Then again, it was only his eighth birthday approaching and he had yet a lot of growing to do. Kasumi herself had grown a fair bit once puberty had hit. And hadn’t that made things awkward with Team Ro. Yūgao especially had always happily announced, that they could finally distinguish between Kasumi and Itachi, now that Kasumi had grown some breasts. She had been glad about the mask covering her flushed cheeks. Although, judging by the awkward coughs always following Yūgao’s loudly voiced observations, the male part of Team Ro had felt as uncomfortable as Kasumi.  
She had never seen Itachi truly angry at someone, but Yūgao had only stopped messing with Kasumi once her twin had snapped and leaked some rather impressive Killing Intent.

It was still almost two hours until twelve, when Tenzō would take over and Kasumi’s shift ended. Her left hand went to grab her current read from the pouch attached to her ANBU flak jacket.  
Half of her senses were alert to her surroundings, constantly scanning for any threats on Uzumaki Naruto’s life, while the other half was happily indulging in the sappy romance novel. Her mother had given it to her with the order to never let her father know about it.  
Kasumi had found, that reading about a world so far away from reality with utterly ridiculous romance…well, it made facing her worries a bit easier at times. 

_  
_

Four hours later, Kasumi strolled through the streets on her way to surprise Sasuke by picking him up from the Academy. She jumped up to sit in a tree next to the gates. Not really the place she should be with her light yukata and heeled sandals, but if she sat on the bench, where everyone could see her, that only posed trouble. First, she would have to deal with the suspicious glances and she had no patience whatsoever for that after a long shift of watching Naruto mutter in his sleep. Second, she couldn’t read in peace.  
She pulled the little, orange book from the layers of her yukata and continued, where she had stopped right before Tenzō had arrived. He had the habit of chiding her about her reading choices. 

Kasumi hadn’t come far, when she heard the bell ring and loud chatter fill the air. She put her book back into her yukata and jumped gracefully down from her high perch without making a noise. As expected, Sasuke was one of the first ones out, though he didn’t bother to look around first, his head shot up as soon as Kasumi flared her chakra playfully.  
“Sumi-nee!”, Sasuke smiled brightly and ran towards her. “I didn’t know you’d pick me up.”  
“Well, if I told you, it wouldn’t have been a surprise, right?”, Kasumi smiled down at her younger brother. Then she turned and started to walk without really waiting for Sasuke to follow her. “Come on, Sasuke. Itachi should be back from his mission by the time we’re home.” That really got the boy running after her. 

They walked just past the street leading to the market in the civilian sector — Kasumi tended to avoid those parts of Konoha and usually opted for more quiet backstreets — when she stopped abruptly. Sasuke, immediately catching on to his sister’s tension, snapped his mouth shut mid-sentence. Kasumi’s muscles were coiled, ready to snap into action at any time. Her head was slightly tilted towards the market, as if she was listening for something.  
Sasuke felt nothing more than a little breeze and Kasumi was suddenly gone from his side. 

His eyes widened, as he looked around and saw her standing at a fruit vendor’s stand. Her tall, lean frame physically on par with the vendor, though it seemed as if she was much taller than him. Sasuke ran towards her.  
“Sumi-nee!”, he yelled, but stopped when he saw the angry gleam in her dark eyes. That was, when Sasuke became aware of the rest of the scene.  
Behind his sister cowered two children. Both with the Uchiha fan on their clothes and probably a few years younger than himself. The vendor had his hand raised. Kasumi held a plum-sized stone in her hand next to her head. Sasuke’s eyes widened. The vendor had thrown the stone at the children.

“I advice you not to do that ever again”, Kasumi said. The chill in her voice letting the perceived temperature drop.  
She tightened her hold and the stone crumbled to bits under the pressure of her delicate fingers, before she let her hand fall next to her body in a deceptively relaxed position. There wasn’t even a wrinkle in her yukata or a strand of her openly flowing hair out of place, despite the shunshin. The perfect picture of superiority.  
“Damn Uchiha”, the vendor spat at her. “You’re bad for business and those brats had it coming.”  
Kasumi felt her expression harden a bit more. She lifted a brow at him. “No need for such language, vendor-san, there are impressionable children around”, she said in a carefully controlled tone. “Or the use of violence, for that matter. You would not want me to report you, would you?” The vendor gnarled his teeth, but didn’t say anything.  
It took all in Kasumi not to sneer at him. “Have a good day”, she dismissed him and nonchalantly turned her back towards him to look down at the children hiding behind her. Another subtle display of her power.  
“You’re Kazu-chan and Ai-chan, Junpei’s kids, right?”, Kasumi asked with a softer voice, pretty face still set in a neutral expression.  
“H-hai, K-kasumi-sama”, the older boy mumbled and grabbed his younger sister a bit tighter. Obviously afraid of a chiding. Neither dared to look up at her.  
Kasumi let her lips morph into a small smile. “Let’s get you home, ne?” She held her hand towards Kazu, who hesitated a bit, but then took it, his other hand firmly holding his little sister. 

“Sasuke”, she ordered, as soon as she walked past him. Sasuke nodded and took little Ai-chan’s other hand, effectively shielding the two younger children between him and his sister. They were not even two alleys away from the market, when another tiny ripple in the air alerted Kasumi to Shisui’s arrival. He appeared next to her, immediately falling perfectly in stride with her steps.  
“You good?”, he asked lowly and uncharacteristically stern, as he leaned a bit closer to her.  
Kasumi gave him a side-way glance. “It’s nothing new”, she answered just as quietly. “But that they would go as low as to throwing stones…” She shook her head. 

“Sumi-nee”, Sasuke suddenly said and Kasumi looked towards him. There was a disturbingly smug expression on his youthful face, that didn’t entirely sit well with her.  
“Yes?”, she enquired a bit warily. Sasuke did have a bit of a mischievous streak, after all, despite how sweet he usually was. Kasumi entirely blamed Shisui for that.  
“I can take Kazu-chan and Ai-chan home. I’m old enough for that”, Sasuke announced proudly. “You have fun with Shisui-nii.”  
Before Kasumi could do anything more but to blink, Sasuke had ushered the two younger children along with him and around the next corner towards the Uchiha compound. 

“Did my brother just willingly leave my presence?”, Kasumi asked a bit dumbfounded. Sasuke had always searched for the recognition and love in Kasumi and Itachi, since their father wasn’t especially good at that. He never left either of them alone, if they had time for him. He was a bit of a possessive little shit at times…  
Shisui chuckled lowly next to her. “I think, he was rather playing matchmaker.”

_“Eh?!”_

Kasumi could do only so much to keep her voice from shrieking, as her head whipped around to stare at Shisui. A faint pink dusting her cheeks.  
“Not that I mind. I…uh…I’d like that, actually”, Shisui shrugged and looked away from Kasumi. His own cheeks a bit flushed as well. “If you do too, that is.” He looked at her again with an expression made up of so many emotions, Kasumi couldn’t decipher them. She felt her mind blank and her gut squirm, as warmth spread in her cheeks.  
“I…uhm…I’d like that, too”, she murmured uncharacteristically shy. “I’d like that a lot.”  
Shisui’s eyes widened, before they softened and a truly genuine smile relaxed his features. He offered her his hand and, as so many times before, Kasumi felt her heart beating rapidly and her palms become sweaty.  
“Come”, Shisui said with that brilliant smile. “I know a place, that still sells ice cream to us.” 

When Kasumi took Shisui’s hand and it was just as clammy as hers, she openly smiled for the first time in a while. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

The dinner that evening within the Uchiha main house was silent, as always. Though Sasuke had a suspiciously devilish smile on his lips and kept shooting glances towards Kasumi.  
He only stopped, when Kasumi sent him a glare.  
“Will either of you be here for dinner tomorrow, as well?”, their mother asked into the silence.  
“I have a mission”, Itachi answered, not even bothering to look up from his plate.  
Mikoto’s gaze turned sharp. “Solo again?”  
“No, okā-san”, Itachi replied, this time actually looking up. “I am to lead part of the team under the surveillance of our taichō.”  
“They’re testing, if you’re ready to be captain yourself?”, Fugaku chimed in, his tone gruff but the pride evident in it.  
“Obviously”, Itachi simply said and returned to eating. Kasumi felt her father’s gaze on her. They had not asked her to do the same. 

“I heard you’ve spent the afternoon with Shisui.”  
Kasumi’s heart stumbled over a beat. She stopped the motion of her chopsticks mid-bite. And swallowed thickly.  
“Hai, otō-san”, she answered, although it hadn’t been a question, and looked at her father. His face was set in a small scowl. Kasumi felt her gut churn.  
“Was he training you?” Her father’s tone implied, that he already knew, that they hadn’t trained.  
“…no”, Kasumi answered, because it was expected of her. “We had ice cream and talked.”  
A gleam she couldn’t quite decipher entered her father’s eyes. Her mother furrowed her brows slightly and her gaze shot between her husband and her daughter.  
“Then he is holding you back”, her father said harshly. “Your brother is up for promotion to team captain and you have time to saunter around with that kid.” Anger coiled tightly in Kasumi’s gut. The palms of her hand were a bit sticky, as she gently put her chopsticks down and met the hard look of her father head on. 

She felt Itachi try to sooth her anger, but she batted his chakra away like annoying flies.  
“I am not up for promotion, because I hold closer ties to the clan than Itachi”, Kasumi informed her father bluntly. “They don’t consider me trustworthy enough.” Fugaku’s expression hardened at her tone and her implications.  
“And _Shisui_ is a wonderful person to spend time with”, she almost hurled the words at her father. Then she looked at her mother. “Please, excuse me.”  
“Don’t you dare to—”, Fugaku began, but Kasumi stood and left the room with her chin held high and her back straight. The stiffness of her gait was the only thing betraying how irritated she actually was.  
There was the thud of the door shutting close behind her and then stunned silence. 

“That was unnecessary, Fugaku”, Mikoto chided softly.  
“But she—”  
“Is a thirteen year old girl. She’s a _teenager_ ”, Mikoto’s eyes were a bit amused at the blank look on her husband’s face. “Let her have some freedom.”  
“We have no time for freedom”, Fugaku growled out lowly, but yielded when his wife shot him a stern gaze.  
“Should I have told you that, when I was thirteen and you tried to get me to go out with you?”, Mikoto smiled at him. Itachi watched, as his father’s expression softened, how the wrinkles smoothed out and he seemed younger. It was…strange. He almost looked like the man he remembered from years ago. A father he could have followed.  
“Those were different times”, Fugaku shook his head.  
“Shisui’s a good kid”, Mikoto said, completely ignoring what he had said. “He’s got his heart in the right place and he’s a jōnin. A respectful, capable, young man for our little girl.”  
“I’m pretty sure, Kasumi could beat him in a fight”, Itachi dared to say. It was one of the things, that kept him from getting angry himself. If Shisui would do anything Kasumi wouldn’t like — not that he ever thought his best friend capable of doing such a thing! — Kasumi would be able to put him into his place.  
“See”, Mikoto immediately jumped to the bait. “No reason to worry.”  
“There are _too many_ reasons to worry these days”, Fugaku sighed deeply. Itachi frowned at that. He had to agree with his father, if for entirely different reasons. 

_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Itachi found his sister sitting on the roof and staring at the star-lit sky. She didn’t move or say anything, as he sat down next to her.  
But she accepted the soft greeting, as he wrapped his chakra around hers, in kind. Kasumi shifted her weight and moved closer, so she could lay her head against Itachi’s shoulder.  
“Okā-san approves”, he said lowly. Kasumi’s tiny nod crinkled the material of his sleeve.  
“Ah.”  
Itachi tilted his head, so it rested against Kasumi’s. _I approve, too._  
_Thanks._ Kasumi’s chakra seemed to say, as it mingled with his. 

“Do you really think ANBU doesn’t trust you?”, he asked after a while, his gaze upon the glowing lights in the many houses of the Uchiha compound.  
Kasumi sighed deeply. “Could there be any other explanation?”  
Itachi furrowed his brows at that.  
“I have almost as many solo missions as you”, she elaborated. “Our skills are up to par, if varying at some points. And Tenzō-senpai has let me lead some of our joined missions already.”  
“I didn’t know that”, Itachi said sharply, but Kasumi just shrugged before she snuggled a bit closer to him.  
“Tenzō-senpai didn’t want me to broadcast it. Apparently he shouldn’t have done that”, she explained. “I walked in on taichō chiding him in the corridor after one of those missions.”  
“So, it really is, because you’re closer to father”, Itachi mused, his lips set into a tight line.  
“Which means”, Kasumi continued for him, “there has to be either an ulterior motive for your promotion or an ulterior motive for holding me back. You have to be careful.”  
“I’m always careful”, Itachi said in a flat tone. _We can’t trust anyone but us._  
“Be _more_ careful then”, Kasumi snapped at him, irritation swirling in the flickering flame of her chakra. “I won’t lose you.”  
Itachi laughed lowly at his sister’s demand of him not dying. “I’ll do my best.”  
They both knew, that they couldn’t promise their survival. Times were dangerous, especially for Uchiha. And even the training they had put upon themselves to be as powerful as they could possibly be…it didn’t guarantee anything. 

Kasumi’s gaze sharpened. Dark eyes searching the night sky. A messenger hawk was circling over them.  
“You got a mission tomorrow, right?”, she asked and when Itachi nodded, she gently removed herself from his side.  
“Well”, Kasumi said and stood, “then that one’s for me.”  
Itachi looked up, but didn’t say anything. A small frown settled on his features.  
“I wanted to pick Shisui up from the jōnin lounge tomorrow”, Kasumi said a bit wistfully. Her gaze still on the hawk. “Tell him I’m sorry.” She looked down at her twin.  
“Make sure you’re able to pick him up another time then”, Itachi replied dryly. _Take care. Stay safe._  
A small smile curled around the corners of her mouth. “I will try.” Then she vanished in a fast shunshin.

_  
_

The Team Ro locker room was abandoned at this hour of the day. Not having been able to change properly at home, Kasumi slipped out of her combat pants and yukata to switch them for the standard ANBU trousers and the under armour shirt. She was just pulling the shirt down over her stomach, when the door opened.  
Kasumi looked up with a quirk in her brow. Kakashi stumbled in, his frame slouched and his uniform caked with dirt and blood.  
“Kakashi-taichō”, Kasumi greeted with a nod. One red, glowing eye shot up in the dimly lit room to pierce her gaze.  
“Kasumi”, he said in a rough voice. Apparently a hard mission. With that, Kasumi returned to pulling her under armour properly down and grabbed for her flak jacket to fasten it to her body.  
She could hear Kakashi shuffle behind her, moving to his locker and dispatching his ruined uniform. It didn’t take her long to finish her preparations. Her wolf mask in hand, Kasumi strolled past Kakashi, never looking at him in order to give him some resemblance of privacy.  
“You going out?”, Kakashi asked suddenly. Kasumi stopped and looked at him. He was dressed in casual trousers and a shirt. His mask hiding the lower half of his face as always, but his eyes more tired than usual.  
“I guess so”, Kasumi answered. “Got the call a few minutes ago.” Kakashi nodded. On a whim, she pulled a scroll from her pouch and threw it at her taichō.  
He caught the scroll effortlessly with one hand.  
“You look as if you need it”, Kasumi said, before she left the room in a shunshin.  
Kakashi furrowed his brows and looked at the scroll. It was one of the bentō scrolls she always carried around. His lips twitched into a half-smile beneath his mask. A part of him wasn’t sure, whether he should take it as her strange way of caring about team mates or as an insult to how bad he looked.

Kasumi appeared suddenly and without a sound in the Hokage’s office. She crouched down, one knee on the ground and her head bowed, mask perfectly hiding anything of her features but two dark gems gleaming beneath it. Her hair high in a pony tail to not hinder her in a fight, opposite to how she wore it when she was off-missions.  
“Sandaime-sama”, she announced her arrival, not that it was necessary. The Hokage was perfectly capable of sensing her. Just like his guards. It was an act of respect and to not trigger security measurements, to never completely suppress one’s chakra when in the presence of the Hokage.  
“I am sorry to bother you so late, Ōkami-san”, he began and looked at the girl, who rose to her full height as soon as he began speaking, “but this demands our immediate attention.” The Hokage pointed towards a scroll on his desk.  
“Tell me what you see”, he tested. Kasumi tilted her head slightly, not yet stepping nearer. For a moment the crimson glow of the sharingan pierced the darkness of the office like the eyes of a demon.  
“The scroll is heavily sealed”, she said, her voice slightly disturbed by the mask to further alienate her characteristics, “though someone — I’d guess you, Sandaime-sama — has opened it.” She was next to the desk in a flicker. Her torso slightly bowed, as she examined the scroll a bit closer.  
“The materials and craftsmanship are pointing at Kawa”, Kasumi continued and straightened again, before she took a few steps back. “Does this mean Suna has made a move?”  
Old eyes landed on her in a thoughtful expression. Uchiha Kasumi had become one of the best among his forces. Not just in combat, but due to her upbringing as a clan heiress, she was also well-versed in politics.  
If she wasn’t an Uchiha…

“It does”, Hiruzen answered gravely, ignoring his own train of thoughts. “We can not openly engage, just as Suna will not openly attack. But we can offer Tanigakure information, so they will be able to defend their borders.” He pulled another scroll from his desk, just as heavily sealed as the one Kasumi had examined.  
“Deliver this safely to the Kawakage”, Hiruzen ordered, a grave tone within his weathered voice. “Expect enemy contact at any given moment. Be fast. This is highly time sensitive.”  
Kasumi took the offered scroll with a small bow. “Hai, Sandaime-sama.” A tiny rush of chakra later, she had vanished.  
“Stay safe”, Hiruzen murmured unheard by anyone but his guards, as he turned and looked over the village sleeping beneath the Hokage tower. A weight settled on his shoulders at the sight, but his heart sang with love and pride.

_  
_

With every step Kasumi took away from the village, she felt more at ease.  
She almost wanted to laugh as she felt the weight fall from her shoulders. Out here, running at a speed blurring the world, she was only Kasumi. There was no coup d’état; no suspicions; no treason. Nothing but the regular flow of her chakra and the tree bark underneath her sandals.  
It were moments like these, when Kasumi dreamed. She would imagine a life without killing. Without the bitterness seeping like poison through her clan. A life, where Itachi would finally find the courage to ask Izumi on a date. Maybe a life, where she could have Shisui at her side without worrying about any of them dying on a mission. A shot at happiness.

Sometimes, Kasumi wondered how it would be to just…not return to Konoha after a mission.  
It was tempting in a way Kasumi had never been tempted before. She would travel every road and visit every country. Maybe sell some herbs she gathered along the way. Help out other travellers. She would not use her sharingan, she would hopefully never awaken the Mangekyō, because that was a pain she would never wish to experience. Maybe she would keep the katana, just to be safe.  
A wandering woman with no roots and no boundaries, with nothing but freedom…that sounded nice.

But Kasumi would never give into that temptation. She had Itachi and Sasuke and Shisui and those innocent in their clan, that she would protect.  
Kasumi’s very heart was in Konoha and to leave the village would mean to leave her heart behind. Now, what a life would that be without a heart?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....yeah....I haven't abandoned this one.  
> Sorry for the long wait?
> 
> And....sorry for Shisui?


	5. loved

A biting pain shot through Kasumi’s left thigh, as she took the kunai. It was a calculated risk, so she would get closer to her opponent. As the sharp edge of the kunai sliced through her trousers and sunk into her muscled flesh, Kasumi pulled her katana in a strong arch. Blood splattered onto her front and mask. Crimson sharingan glowing beneath the blood-painted mask was the last thing the Suna-nin saw.  
As the large body fell away from her, Kasumi heaved a sigh and leaned against the tree behind her. Rain poured down and washed away the blood already. She was grateful for that. Her breath came ragged and the dull pain from the kunai wound in her leg throbbed uncomfortably. She had also taken a hit to her ribs, which made breathing a bit hard. They were probably bruised, if not cracked, she wasn’t quite sure. The problem hadn’t been, that her pursuers had been extremely powerful.  
Now dark, tired eyes swept over the battlefield around her. Bodies were strewn all around. Blood soaked into the soil, not yet washed away by the rain. The problem had been, that they had been so many.  
Ah. Kasumi thought in her slightly fogged mind and an acidic taste on her tongue. _She had gotten quite scary, hadn’t she?_ Her eyes travelled over the felled enemies once more. Her heart grew heavy at the sight.  


She knew, that she had to leave. The border to Hi no Kuni was yet almost a day away. Numb hands put the katana away and checked for the sealed scroll in her pouch.  
The Kawakage had been more than happy to receive information from the Hokage. In return, he had insisted on Kasumi taking a scroll with information Tanigakure had gathered about Suna’s economics as a thanks with her. Suna had gotten wind of her mission — possibly a traitor within the Kawakage’s staff, she had to talk to the Hokage about that — and had caught her a day away from Tanigakure.  


Her hand gleamed in a green glow, as Kasumi applied some first aid iryō chakra to quench the bleeding. The wound was deep and had just narrowly missed the femoral artery. Kasumi wasn’t necessarily a genius, when it came to iryō jutsu, but at least she wouldn’t bleed to death. To be safe, she wrapped a bandage tightly around her leg to apply pressure.  
Then she was off again. Running at ANBU speed through the pouring rain, eager to reach the safety of Hi no Kuni’s borders.  


Halfway there, sometime in the late evening, Kasumi had to stop once again. The dull throb in her thigh had increased over the last two hours.  
“Shit”, she cursed under her breath, when she saw the red seeping through the white bandages. Carefully she peeled them off and examined the wound again. Whatever she had healed earlier, had been completely futile. The wound was bleeding again.  
“Of course”, Kasumi hissed. “Damn Suna and their damn poisons.”  
She let her hands glow with iryō chakra again to stop the bleeding once more. Then she popped a food pill. Because as much as she hated them, they would replenish her blood and make sure, that she wouldn’t bleed out by the time she had made it to Konoha.  
Steeling herself against a hard trek with many stops to reseal the wound, Kasumi started to run again.  


The equation was quite simple.  
Either she made it to Konoha and to the hospital, while the food pills still were enough to counter the effects of the poison.  
Or she would die. Which wasn’t an option.  


So Kasumi pushed.  
She pushed with an iron will and multiple stops to heal herself somewhat and push on again.  
Food pill after food pill and healing after healing, depleting her chakra resources more than any fight ever had.  


She reached the border ten hours later without another enemy contact. Slipped through the security net on secret ANBU routes and let herself get healed up a bit more efficiently at the closest outpost. They didn’t have an antidote to the poison and just told her to rush.  
So Kasumi ran like she had never ran before.  
And she healed herself again, after another day, when the poison had eroded the more skilled healing. The food pills didn’t do much anymore. Not for her chakra reserves and not for the pain. Or the blood loss.  


When Kasumi finally reached the walls of Konohagakure, she felt light-headed and more asleep than awake. Black spots clouded her vision and she wasn’t entirely certain, how she had made it back at all.  
Evading any detection as ANBU usually did, she slipped — or more like, ungraciously stumbled — through the window into the Hokage office.  


A young man with brown hair in a ponytail and a recognisable scar across the bridge of his nose was in the office. His meeting with the Hokage cut short, when Kasumi appeared.  
The blood on her uniform and mask nothing but a rusty brown, half washed away from the rain, half caked dry. The blood running down her left leg was bright and obviously still flowing, though.  
“Sandaime-sama”, she croaked out and pulled a scroll from her pouch. Her tall, lean frame swayed. The young man felt his arms reach out on instinct.  


Kasumi saw the Hokage get up somewhere between the black spots. Or she thought he did. She wasn’t certain. There was so much black.  
Then nothing.  
Her body tumbled to the ground as if someone had cut the strings on a puppet.  


For a moment nothing happened in the Hokage office. A second later, Hiruzen was hurrying around his desk.  
“Genma”, he ordered in a harsh tone. His guard appeared immediately. Worried gaze shifting between the unconscious ANBU and the Hokage, who went to kneel beside her.  
“Get a medic here”, Hiruzen barked out harshly, his old voice thundering with authority. Genma nodded, twirled his senbon from one side to the other and vanished in a fast shunshin.  
Hiruzen let the prickling feeling of iryō chakra flow to his hands.  
“I’m sorry Iruka-san”, he said, but didn’t look up from the girl he tried to keep alive. “But we have to cut this short.”  
“O-of course, Sandaime-sama”, Iruka stuttered. “Any way I can help?”  


The Hokage didn’t answer, as just then, Genma returned with a medic from the hospital.  
“What happened?”, the medic asked and knelt on the other side of the girl. Immediately assessing the damage and starting to work the Mystical Palm Technique.  
Hiruzen removed his own hands and slowly stood. “I’m not quite sure”, he said lowly. His tired eyes rushed to Iruka, who was still staring at the scene.  
The young man noticed the look of his Hokage, bowed and hastily left the office.  
“Genma”, Hiruzen said, his eyes back on the medic healing the ANBU. “Inform Team Ro.”  
“Hai”, Genma nodded again and left once more.  


“She probably was in contact with Suna”, the Hokage said to the medic.  
“Ah”, she replied, her brows furrowed and palms glowing green. “That explains the poison.”  
“Poison?” Hiruzen’s tone was sharp.  
“Hai”, the medic answered. “The wound is not bad. The problem is, that it’s been poisoned, so the blood doesn’t properly clot. This wound is at least two days old. Which means she lost a lot of blood and has dangerously low chakra reserves.” She then got up from her kneeling position. “She’s stable enough to move her to the ANBU ward. We need to extract the poison as soon as possible and find an antidote.”  
Hiruzen picked up the scroll, that had fallen from the girl’s hand as she fell.  
“Do that”, he said and returned to his desk. “Keep me closely updated on her progress. Iwashi.”  
Immediately another of his guards appeared in the office.  
“Please help Yuzuki-san move Ōkami-san to the ANBU ward”, the Hokage ordered. Iwashi nodded and gently lifted the girl up into his arms. A moment later, he and the medic had left in a shunshin.  
Hiruzen sighed deeply.  


“Team Ro has been informed”, Genma reported, when he entered the office a moment later. “They weren’t…happy about it.”  
“No one ever is, when their team mate is injured”, Hiruzen sighed. “Thank you”, he dismissed Genma, who bowed and left to retake his position.  
Hiruzen lit his pipe and took a deep pull, as he opened the scroll Kasumi had brought him. He expected Kakashi to show up at one point. The boy usually did, when one of his team mates was injured. A smile wrinkled Hiruzen’s face a bit more. That one had a good heart, despite his ruthlessness. Maybe ANBU wasn’t the best for the boy after all…  
His thoughts drifted to Kasumi and Itachi. Kind souls trapped to do terrible things. Hiruzen sighed again. They were at peace, he didn’t need to torture his children like this. Maybe it was time to rethink ANBU in general. Or at least for those with kind hearts and the potential to pass on the Will of Fire to the next generation.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi woke with a startling clarity.  


White encompassed everything she saw and a fog dulled her senses to a point she almost panicked. Her heart rate quickened and her muscles coiled, ready to attack.  
“Kasu-chan, it’s okay. Relax.”  
She’d know that voice everywhere. Even if she wouldn’t know her own name, she would know his.  


Kasumi’s head jerked around, making black spots appear in her vision for a second. Then her eyes met her twin’s and the world was okay again.  
“Ita-kun”, she croaked out. “What happened?”  
His chakra carefully cocooned her in warmth and Kasumi sighed lowly at the familiar feeling.  
“You tell me”, Itachi said with a quirk in his brows and a worried curl to his lips. “I was just training with Shisui, when Kakashi-taichō came and said you’re in the hospital. ANBU ward, of course, so Shisui couldn’t come.” A tiny smile pushed the corners of his mouth up for a second. “Pissed him off a fair bit.”  
“Kakashi-taichō?”, Kasumi asked confused. She didn’t remember meeting him.  
“Apparently Shiranui-san informed Team Ro about…your arrival”, Itachi explained. “You made it to the Hokage and then fainted. Chakra exhaustion and too much blood loss.”  
“Blood loss”, Kasumi repeated. It resonated somewhat within her. She furrowed her brows. Blood loss…blood lo— _Poison!_  
“Suna”, she said and Itachi’s eyes widened a bit at that. “I had an encounter with Suna-nin and…something about poison…” Her eyes wandered towards her thigh automatically. “A poisoned kunai, yes.”  
“And of course, you still put too much chakra into healing, don’t you?”, Itachi sighed and almost looked exasperated.  
“Oi!”, Kasumi shouted in indignation, half a mind of throwing her pillow at her twin. “I have you know, that I had to heal myself for—” Her brows furrowed. “What day is it?”  
“Thursday morning”, Itachi answered calmly. “You arrived Tuesday evening.”  
Kasumi’s lips formed a surprised _‘o’_.  
“I was out for over a day?” Her dark eyes found their identical twins in Itachi’s face.  
He just shrugged, but in the way his chakra swirled and mingled with what little she had currently, Kasumi could read how worried he had been. Still was.  


Trying to come to terms with that information, Kasumi let her eyes drift. White. So much white and the smell of disinfectants and illness and death. It bothered her. There was a scroll and a book on the table next to her bed and a half-full bottle of water.  
“You’ve been here since yesterday?”, she asked lowly, her eyes shooting back to Itachi.  
“Of course”, he simply answered. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Kasumi’s mouth. _Of course._ She wouldn’t have let anyone remove her from his side either, if the situation would have been the other way around.  
Kasumi moved underneath the blanket, assessing how much pain it caused. Her ribs were healed and although she was tired and her mind a bit fogged, there was nothing more but a dull pain in her left thigh.  
“So you going to take me back home?”, she asked, after deciding, that she was healthy enough. All things considered, she wasn’t _that_ injured to begin with.  
“They _just_ got the poison out of you”, Itachi replied with a stern look, but Kasumi pulled the blanket from her lean frame.  
“Good”, she said and sat up, “then there’s no reason to stay.” She needed to report to the Hokage. Pick up Shisui from the jōnin lounge as promised. Give Sasuke a kiss. And a hug. And maybe another kiss.  
“Kasumi. Lay back down!”  
“I’m _fine_ , Itachi”, Kasumi growled back and pushed her body off the bed. She just _couldn’t_ stay. There were so many things she had to do. So many people depending on her. She _couldn’t_.  
Itachi, well-acquainted with his twin’s stubbornness, stood with a sigh and took a step to be next to her. Her legs were still a bit wobbly and he could see the little line burrowing itself into the smooth skin between her brows. Kasumi was far from fit enough to leave the hospital. Chakra exhaustion wasn’t something to be trifled with. But he knew, that there was no sense in trying to argue with her.  


A shiver ran through her body. The sleeve-less under armour and torn ANBU pants she wore, didn’t help much to keep what little body heat she had.  
“Baka”, Itachi murmured next to her, but handed her a new pair of trousers and one of the short yukatas she wore off-mission nonetheless.  
“You know me too well”, Kasumi smiled at her twin. It was an unsteady smile, curling her lips ever so slightly, but it reached her eyes, softening them and making Itachi succumb to his fate. _Damn that puppy look._  
Itachi rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah. Now get changed, so I can get you home and in your bed.”  
Kasumi chuckled lowly at her twin, but did was she was told. Changing was…a struggle. Her hands cramped from being cold and her body shook from exhaustion, even pulling up trousers was a challenge. But she managed. Without help, although Itachi had offered it multiple times in increasingly exasperated tones. Kasumi refused each time, because if she couldn’t even change her clothes, then she might actually have to admit, that she wasn’t fit enough to leave and that…well, that made her gut churn in discomfort.  


“Get your things”, Itachi sighed, as he took his book and the water bottle. “I’ll tell the front desk, that we’re leaving.”  
Kasumi just nodded and Itachi left for a moment. There wasn’t much Kasumi had to take with her. Her bloodied and ripped clothes; the pouches, weapons and mask sitting on a chair at the entrance to her room; else… Kasumi let her eyes drift over the room. They stopped at the scroll on the table next to the bed.  
With unsteady steps, she went to it and her eyes widened a bit. It was the bentō scroll she had given Kakashi right before the mission.  
“So he came visiting as well”, Kasumi murmured and took the scroll. She rolled it idly in her hand, looking at it with furrowed brows. “Wonder if he was here while Itachi was…”  
With a simple pulse of chakra, that exhausted her more than she wanted to admit, Kasumi unsealed the scroll. A little paper note fell to the ground.  
“Eh?”  
Kasumi picked it up and frowned.  


_Get well. Yūgao’s unbearable without you._  


It was signed with a little, drawn dog mask. Kasumi didn’t even feel her lips curl into a smile as she shook her head.  
“Baka”, she murmured lowly and if her tone held a bit of fondness, she didn’t think anything of it. Team Ro had grown close over the years, since Itachi and her had joined. One could only go on so many life-threatening missions together before bonding, after all.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

A few hours and a long, healthy nap later, found Kasumi tightly wrapped in a winter yukata and long, tight combat trousers on her way to the Jōnin Standby Station. Her hair was down and her long pony covering partially the hitai-ate she wore. She was still cold, though, courtesy of her chakra exhaustion.  
The round building next to the Ninja Academy was easy to reach. Getting into it, another story entirely. Not that Kasumi wasn’t allowed to, Itachi and her had been promoted to jōnin sometime shortly after their ANBU team had learnt, that they had entered ANBU with a chūnin rank. With their glowing recommendations, it was merely a technicality to promote them.  


“What do you want here, Uchiha. This is no playground for kids.”  


_Ah._ This was, what Kasumi had anticipated to cause problems. Her dark eyes turned towards the chūnin guard at the desk right before the entrance to the jōnin lounge. He was around Izumo and Kotetsu’s age, maybe two years older yet. A nasty scowl on his face and distaste evident as soon as his eyes zeroed in on the two small Uchiha fans displayed on the tomoeri of Kasumi’s casual yukata.  
“I’m certain you’d know everything about playgrounds, chūnin-san”, she drawled in a polite tone, despite the biting words, dark eyes assessing the growing indignation on the shinobi’s face. “And as a shinobi of Konoha, you should also know to respect your superiors. If a jōnin wants to enter the jōnin lounge, they may enter it, right?” She lifted a brow, as she simply _stared down_ the young man. Something she had learnt from observing her father.  
“H-hai”, the chūnin stuttered out, his bravado deflagrated in a moment as he squirmed beneath her hard look.  
The door to the jōnin lounge opened with a squeak and a man with tired eyes and dirty-blond hair poked his head out.  
“What’s the proble—”, he began, but his eyes landed on Kasumi and the highly uncomfortable guard.  
“Yo Shisui”, the jōnin shouted into the room behind him, “your girlfriend’s scaring Kei-kun.”  
“ _EH!?_ ”  


There was the sound of feet scrambling and then Shisui’s shock of black hair came through the door. His eyes widened, when he saw Kasumi casually standing in front of a rather anxious Kei.  
“Kasumi”, Shisui said and was next to her in a heart beat, his hands on her cheeks to asses the damage, “shouldn’t you be in the hospital? Ita-kun said you’d be there for another two days. At least.” His worried gaze travelled all over her lean frame, taking in the fatigue in her dark orbs, the winter yukata too warm for the weather outside and the slight shiver, that seemed to shake her every now and then.  
“Ah”, Kasumi shrugged with a side-ways nod. “I promised, I’d pick you up, didn’t I?” Her lips relaxed into a tiny smile.  
“Baka”, Shisui muttered, right thumb stroking her cheek tenderly. “Not at the cost of your health.” Their eyes locked, Kasumi with a slightly defiant look and Shisui with concern lacing his dark hues.  


An amused cough broke them out of their reverie.  


“Get out of here and charm your girlfriend somewhere else”, the blond jōnin grinned widely and winked at a slightly blushing Shisui. “I’ll send someone, if we need you.”  
“Thanks, Takeru”, Shisui muttered a bit embarrassed and let his hands fall from Kasumi’s face. The black-haired beauty suppressed a pout at the sudden loss of warmth.  
But Shisui took her hand instead and led her out of the Jōnin Standby Station. “Come on, let’s get you a nice, hot cup of tea.”  


Despite the continued support Shisui gained from the villagers for his sunny disposition alone, no one wanted to host Kasumi. So they ended up back at the Uchiha compound, where Kasumi made a pot of tea at her home and they then sat on the roof of the main building, looking at the clouds in the sky.  
“I’m sorry about this”, Shisui muttered, not looking at Kasumi and pulling uncomfortably at the black cloth of the hitai-ate around his forehead.  
Kasumi shook her head, as she poured the tea. “It’s not your fault”, she said softly. The village chose how they wanted to treat the Uchiha. And Kasumi knew, that by now with what her father had planned, it was well-deserved.  
“But you don’t deserve to be treated like that!”, Shisui snapped, eyes glazed with righteous fury. “You deserve to be worshipped and offered only the best. Not because you’re Fugaku-sama’s daughter, but because you have a kind heart and you fiercely protect the clan, because you’re amazing and powerful, because you’re doing your duty to those ungrateful village-bastards with such devotion and—” Shisui stopped, a deep-red colour painting his cheeks, as he looked away again.  
Kasumi stared at him, lips slightly parted and eyes wide. She felt the heat of a blush on her own cheeks. If her hand was a bit unsteady, when she handed Shisui his cup of tea, she didn’t acknowledge it. Neither did she acknowledge the rapid beating of her heart.  


“Thank you,…Shisui”, she murmured too embarrassed at his outburst to actually look at him. She pointedly ignored Shisui’s surprised cough as he choked on his tea, when she used his name without any honorifics. Awkward silence engulfed them, as Shisui regained his ability to breath properly and Kasumi delicately nipped at the warm, green tea. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so familiar? _Ugh. This was embarrassing._ Kasumi felt her cheeks warm up again.  
“I like the blue of a summer sky. It ought to be my favourite colour, I think”, Shisui suddenly said utterly out of context. “What’s yours?”  
“Red”, Kasumi replied flatly, but she couldn’t help the tiny smile, that curled around her lips. She pulled her legs from the seiza she had them in and relaxed a bit, as she propped up her body with one arm. Mind no longer on a proper seating style. She could relax around Shisui.  
“I know you don’t particularly like sweet things, but eat dango with Itachi anyway”, Shisui continued, his eyes in the sky. “He thinks it’s stupid, by the way.” His gaze travelled down to meet Kasumi’s stare with a lopsided grin.  
“I don’t care”, Kasumi shrugged nonchalantly. “I like sharing a meal with the people I like.” The faint pink dusting returned to her cheeks. “Or tea.”  
To avoid looking at Shisui, Kasumi took another sip from her tea. The warm beverage made her sleepy. She stifled a yawn that shook her whole body.  


“Why don’t you lean on me”, Shisui said and shifted his position a bit. Kasumi looked at him for a long second, her eyes boring into his as if they were x-raying him. Then she put the tea cup gingerly down and shuffled a bit closer. Her shoulder snuggled up to his side and her head came to rest in the crook of his neck. Shisui exhaled sharply at the close contact, but wound an arm around her waist nonetheless.  
“I’m not tired”, Kasumi denied stifling another yawn. Shisui’s warmth seeped into her cold bones. His playful chakra for once settled into a content swirl.  
“I know”, Shisui replied and Kasumi could hear the smile in his tone. “Just rest your eyes and I’ll tell you stories, okay?”  
“Mhm…”, Kasumi murmured, already sinking more against his muscled torso.  
“Once this nasty business is over”, Shisui began in a low tone, so only she could hear him, “I will take you out. Like, on a proper date. We’ll go have some sukiyaki and tea at Yamada-san’s.”  
“…and nabe…”, Kasumi murmured against his skin. Her hot breath fanning over his neck. Shisui chuckled lowly.  
“And nabe in the evening”, he agreed, excited, that she remembered his favourite food. “And then we will sit at the cliff looking over the Naka River and watch the stars. We’ll bring a blanket, so it’s not cold and tea and maybe even a bit of fruit. Itachi will tease us _relentlessly_ , but we won’t care. We’ll go out the next day again. And the day after. To watch the sakura at Hanami and the lanterns at Tōrō Nagashi.”  
Kasumi’s breath evened out.  
“Maybe I’ll win you something at the next festival, too”, Shisui went on, painting the happy life he wished Kasumi could have. “One of those ugly stuffed toys, you know. And then I’ll pretend to be offended, when you won’t put it on display somewhere in your room. Which, of course, you’d then do begrudgingly and shoot it that dark look you always have, when someone annoys you. Until one day…one day you’ll look at it and smile, because it makes you think about me. I think, that would make me really happy, you know. You thinking about me and smiling. Because…when I’m thinking about you, I’m smiling already.” And true to his words, a smile, radiant in it’s honesty, spread on Shisui’s lips.  
“Takeru says I get a dopey look, when I think about you”, he chuckled lowly. “I always want to say, that I’d have to have a dopey look all the time then, because…you know…I’m thinking about you all the time. Mah~ maybe I _have_ a dopey look all the time. I don’t know. I don’t care. I like thinking about you.”  
He looked down at the girl snuggled against him. Her dark hair fanning out like a black waterfall, long lashes grazing her cheeks and shoulders rising and falling with deep, even breaths. Shisui smiled. Maybe there was hope for them at last.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Shisui gently put Kasumi down onto her bed and pulled the blanket over her frame. He hesitated for a moment, his fingers idly brushing her long pony out of her face.  
“ _Kami_ , you’re beautiful”, he murmured under his breath. Born from a sudden impulse, he bent down and place a gentle kiss on her forehead. His lips tingled as they met her soft skin. Kasumi quirked a brow in her sleep and sighed a tiny sigh. Shisui felt his heart swell and his gut flip. _He was one lucky bastard._  
Just as he was about to leave her room through the window again, Shisui felt a short pulse of chakra from the corridor. _Damn._ He knew that chakra very well.  


Shisui opened the door silently and slipped out of Kasumi’s room to face Fugaku.  
“Fugaku-sama”, he bowed his voice not betraying the anxiety rushing his body, the clamminess of his palms and the nausea, that slowly built in his gut.  
“You know, that Kasumi is my precious daughter”, Fugaku began, his looming figure only half-illuminated by the dim light coming from the living room down the corridor.  
“Hai, Fugaku-sama”, Shisui answered, looking everywhere _but_ at Kasumi’s father. Uchiha Fugaku was a highly intimidating man after all. And though he was a traitor, he was also a father and a part of Shisui wished to get his approval.  
“And as such I won’t allow just anyone to defile her.” There was a sharp edge to Fugaku’s voice, that made Shisui’s head snap to him in a heart beat.  
“What exactly are you insinuating?”, Shisui asked just as cuttingly, anger clenching his jaw and his sharingan spinning dangerously. “Fugaku-sama”, he added almost as an after thought.  
Fugaku’s lips pulled into something between a smile and a snarl. “You’ll do just fine”, he then said and suddenly Shisui felt, as if he had passed some secret test.  
“Keep her safe”, Fugaku ordered and turned away to head back to his wife.  
“I’ll do _anything_ to keep her safe and happy”, Shisui promised, conviction vibrating in his tone. _Even if it’s keeping her safe from her own clan._  
Fugaku nodded, his face hidden by the shadows. Then he left and Shisui slumped against Kasumi’s door. He shook his head, when he felt Itachi’s chakra linger close by. He had likely overheard the conversation. Shisui, however, got back into Kasumi’s room without facing his best friend and glanced at her sleeping form, returning the smile to his lips. He had an appointment to uphold, though.  
A moment later, he had shunshinned out of her room and appeared at the Hokage tower, where the Hokage and the Council already awaited him.  


“I don’t see any other way, Sandaime-sama. In two weeks time, right before the next Clan meeting, I will use my Kotoamatsukami to sway Uchiha Fugaku in our favour.”  


Betrayal ran deep that night and it poisoned Shisui’s heart.  


_  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. (And I will say this for the next two chapters. Probably.)  
> This one made even me almost cry when I wrote it. Damn Shisui and being so loveable.


	6. drowned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> .....oh my.....here we go.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: death and grief
> 
> If you really want to feel the entire chapter, listen to Theme from Schindler's List by John Williams.

Soft rustling of Kasumi’s short yukata followed her every step. She wasn’t trying to be stealthy. Three days medical leave had her confined to the village. It made her jumpy and anxious and restless.  
To quench the urge to do something, Kasumi had decided to pay her respects to her ancestors. Something she hadn’t done in a while. Water splashed, as she filled the wooden bucket at the entrance of the cemetery. She passed the Memorial for the ninja killed in action, a familiar electric flicker in the air, but Kasumi ignored it.  
Her feet led her towards the part of the cemetery, that was only for Uchiha. Her clan had special burial rites in order to prevent the theft of their kekkei genkai. The Hyūga had something similar as far as Kasumi knew. Konoha had accepted it to a degree, mostly they just opted to let the clans be. The long wall Kasumi stopped in front of rose high above her. Forget-me-not growing around it and emerald ivy ranking up the wall.  


In front of the wall with names was a tall stele with their clan symbol and the Uchiha name engraved on the obsidian stone with golden lettering. The monument marking the centre of the family grave. As Kasumi knelt down in front of it in a respectful seiza and put the water bucket next to her with a soft thud, she lowered her upper body in a deep bow. Her forehead almost touching the ground.  
“I have come to pay my respects”, she said in a firm voice, “and to ask of your guidance.”  
She lifted her torso and opened her eyes. They travelled over the countless names engraved on the wall behind the stele. The cremated remains of her ancestors and clansmen hidden beneath.  
_Help me find my way._ She pleaded almost desperately.  
“I grew up with stories about your wisdom and prowess”, Kasumi continued instead and lifted the wooden dipper filled with water and poured it over the foot of the stele to wash it. “I know of your kindness” — Her eyes travelled to her grandfather’s name on the wall. — “and your love for our clan.” Dark eyes wandered to the first name to have been etched into the wall.  
Uchiha Izuna.  
“I love my clan just as dearly”, Kasumi said and kept her hands busy with ritually washing the foot of the stele. “Tell me, _please_ , how can I save them.”  
Her voice cracked as her throat tightened.  


She took a shaky breath and let the dipper drop into the bucket. A deep sadness gripped her heart, as she put a fresh bundle of incense sticks into the stand. She lit it and the heavy scent of evergreen, jasmine and honeysuckle slowly penetrated the air.  
“Are Itachi and I truly enough to lead them through the dark?”, Kasumi asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her sad eyes fixed on the mighty stele in front of her, on the red and white fan and on her clan’s name. Wind let a few strands of her long, silky hair dance around her frame.  
Kasumi sighed, her doubts would not be answered here. She bowed again, her hands placed on the ground in front of her knees and her forehead touching them. Then she stood gracefully and took the water bucket. Her eyes travelled over the family grave, before she turned and walked away.  


“I hope we’re doing the right thing.”  


The wind picked her hair up again and made it fly prettily around her. Obscuring her sad, dark eyes, before Kasumi lifted a hand and pulled the strand behind her ear and out of her face.  


“I really do.”  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Her heart was still heavy, when Kasumi waited outside of the Jōnin Standby Station. She wasn’t even in the mood to read.  
Shisui’s shift would end in a few minutes and Kasumi couldn’t even start to describe the _raw need_ she had to see his smile. To have his warmth chase away the darkness around her heart. To be her anchor in the raging storm they were facing.  


Kasumi did not care for the wary glances she got from ninja and civilians passing by.  
Neither did she care for the whispered insults floating around her.  
All she cared for was Shisui walking out of the building and the vibrant smile, that lit up his whole features when he saw her. Kasumi felt the tightness lift from her chest. Suddenly it was so much easier to breath.  
Shisui dismissed Takeru with a wave, eyes never leaving the dark-haired beauty on the other side of the street. Takeru chuckled and yelled something, neither Shisui nor Kasumi listened to.  


“You making a habit out of this?”, Shisui asked with a dorky grin. His dark eyes gleaming with joy.  
Kasumi shrugged in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “Maybe.”  
Shisui’s smile widened and her heart soared at the sight.  
“Or maybe I’m just here to remind you, that we’re training with Itachi today.” Kasumi let her lips curl into a sly smirk. Shisui’s smile dropped a bit.  
“Ah and here I thought I could invite you to a cup of tea”, he replied, but put an arm around Kasumi’s shoulders to tuck her closer to his side, as he began walking towards the Uchiha compound.  
Kasumi smiled and relished in the warmth his body provided. “Maybe after training”, she offered.  


Itachi was already waiting for them. They had — maybe a bit deliberately — taken a long route through the village to have some time alone.  
The light air surrounding them left the instant they saw Itachi’s grave expression.  
“They preponed the clan meeting”, Itachi said lowly, as soon as Kasumi and Shisui were close enough. “It will be held in four days. Neither Kasumi nor I are invited.” Shisui’s body went rigid and the arm around Kasumi tightened to pull her even closer.  
“So they will act soon”, Kasumi summarised in an almost detached tone. “We have to talk to Sandaime-sama and the Council.”  
Itachi nodded. But Shisui gently pulled away from Kasumi, making her furrow her brows slightly at the action.  


“That won’t be necessary”, Shisui said lowly, not daring to look at either of them. Itachi shifted his weight and the line between Kasumi’s brows grew deeper.  
“What do you mean?”, she asked warily, willing him to look at her. Shisui’s eyes met hers.  
“I will use Kotoamatsukami on Fugaku.”  


Kasumi’s breathing hitched, her mouth became suddenly very dry and her heart stopped for a moment.  
“This is ridiculous, Shisui”, she then snapped, dark eyes blazing with fury and desperation. “It’s too dangerous!” Shisui was strong, but their father—  
“I have promised to never betray you”, Shisui said and looked at Itachi. “Let me do my duty to the clan and the village. The elders are not straying from their foolishness!”  
Kasumi opened her mouth to protest again, but Itachi beat her to it.  
“We’re running out of time”, he said calmly, his dark, calculating gaze on his best friend. “Are you certain you can do this?”  
“Absolutely”, Shisui answered without any doubt in his unwavering voice.  
“Stop encouraging him”, Kasumi hissed like an angry cat. “We will inform the Hokage and the Council and have them arrested.”  
“They will not come without a fight, Kasumi”, Itachi said lowly, his voice thin and broken. “Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgement.”  
Kasumi sucked in a harsh breath at the words. They felt like a slap.  
“It’s the only way to protect the village without a lot of bloodshed”, Shisui argued. His eyes met Kasumi’s, mirroring her own desperation. “The only way to protect you.”  
He reached out to caress her cheek.  


“I don’t want you to protect me!”, Kasumi snarled and swatted his hand away. “ _I_ am the daughter of the Clan Head, it’s _my_ duty, _my_ privilege and _my_ burden to protect the clan!” Her expression grew even more desperate.  
“Shisui, please, _please_ , I beg of you, let me protect you.”  
Shisui’s expression softened into something heartbreakingly sad. He shared a short look with Itachi, who nodded and left in a fast shunshin.  
“A shame, that Itachi’s the older one”, Shisui said entirely too casual, looking at the spot where Itachi just left. He looked up and straight into Kasumi’s eyes. ”You’d make a great Head of Clan.”  
Kasumi’s heart grew heavy and as the weight settled on her whole body, she knew she was fighting a loosing battle.  


“Don’t change the subject”, she said nonetheless.  
“Kasumi…”, Shisui pleaded as if her name was a prayer. He took a step closer and this time, she allowed him to touch her. Allowed his calloused, warm hand to find a place underneath her ear, fingers caressing the nape of her neck and thumb stroking tenderly across her cheek.  
“I’d rather die, than have anything happen to you”, he whispered. Their eyes intertwined with each other. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you being hurt.” The raw emotion in his tone made Kasumi swallow. She felt her eyes burn and her throat tighten.  
“…and you think I don’t harbour the same feelings?”, she asked, her voice barely a faint whisper. Shisui gave her a sad smile.  
“I know you do”, he replied just as lowly and took another step closer. Kasumi blinked as she tried to get rid of the prickling feeling in her eyes.  
“But you are so much more precious than I am”, Shisui continued. His warm breath fanning over her and his body heat seeping into her skin. This time, however, it did nothing to fight the chill in her bones.  
“Please, let me do this for you”, he begged, his eyes burning with determination. “Let me do this and then—” His voice wavered and he had to swallow. “Then we go and have that picnic at the Naka River, yes? Trust in me.”  
Kasumi exhaled a shaky breath and closed her eyes. She felt a tear spill over and run down her cheek. Utter despair ripping her heart apart.  
“…okay.”  
Another tear fell.  


She felt Shisui pull her closer. Her throat burned and her tears created cold trails down her cheeks.  
The hand in her neck tilted her head slightly. Kasumi opened her eyes. Her sight blurry from the tears, but her gaze effortlessly locked with Shisui’s gentle, dark eyes.  
He was so, _so_ close.  
“You’re not going to loose me, Kasumi”, Shisui whispered. “I promise.”  
Then he leaned in and Kasumi felt her heart beat the same beat as his. Fast and desperate.  


Warm, smooth lips pressed against hers.  
And Kasumi let herself fall.  


“I love you”, he whispered against her lips, before he kissed her again.  
Kasumi put her arms around him to pull him all the closer. She increased the pressure, as her tears fell freely and her heart stumbled and her stomach flipped.  
The kiss tasted salty from her tears and a bit like sunshine. And it came all so painfully natural.  


“I love you, too”, she whispered. “So please, _please_ , keep your promise.”  
Shisui didn’t answer. He kissed her again. Raw and desperate and oh so sweet.  
Kasumi could feel nothing but him. Nothing but his lips on hers. There was nothing but Shisui and one agonising thought.  


If he was so certain about his success, then why was her heart so heavy? Why did this feel so much more like a goodbye than a beginning?  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi groaned as her body crashed against the tree trunk. Air was forced out of her lungs and for a moment her vision went black.  
“I’m so sorry!”, Tenzō immediately came towards her to help her up. As she blinked the dark spots out of her vision, Kasumi noticed, that the sparring of the rest of Team Ro had stopped, too.  
She looked up at her team mates staring at her.  
“What?”, she snapped. “Never seen someone not dodging a kick?” Her team recoiled at the harsh words so unfamiliar coming from Kasumi. Well, anyone but Kakashi and Itachi. Her twin was used to her sour temper ever since three days ago, when she had come back home without Shisui and in a strange mood. And Kakashi simply wasn’t intimidated by her.  
“You usually dodge”, Tenzō shrugged next to her, though there was a hint of concern tinting his chakra. Kasumi glared from beneath her mask at him. Tenzō held up his hands as a sign of peace.  
“Where’s your head, Kasumi?”, Kakashi asked sternly and Kasumi felt a sense of déjà vu wash over her.  


_With Shisui._  
_With Sasuke._  
_With Itachi._  
_With the coup._  
_With the village._  


“Just wondering when we get lunch”, she answered instead. A shaky breath entered her lungs, as she suppressed all her worries. She could not compromise the mission. She had to get her head back into the game.  
“Team Ro dismissed”, Kakashi said sharply. “Kasumi, stay.”  
Itachi shot a look at Kasumi, who just jerked her head in a tiny nod, then he followed the rest of Team Ro towards their locker room. Kasumi resisted the very childish urge to cross her arms in front of her chest, as she remained with her taichō on the training ground.  
“You are a liability”, Kakashi said in hard, cold words. His bi-coloured gaze boring into her very soul. Kasumi’s left eye twitched. She was _no_ liability.  
“If this would have been a mission”, her taichō continued mercilessly, “then you would have threatened the lives of your team mates. Whatever distracts you; get rid of it or get out.” Kasumi gnarled her teeth. What did he know. _Nothing._ She felt as if she was strung up too close to the breaking point. Threatening to snap at any moment.  
“Hai, taichō”, Kasumi hissed through clenched teeth.  
Kakashi looked at her for a while longer, then he jerked his head in the direction of the ANBU building, dismissing her. Kasumi didn’t stay another heart beat.  


She appeared in the locker room, where the rest of Team Ro was still hanging around.  
“Kasumi, you good?”, Kō asked warily, as she stalked past them all towards her locker. Kasumi just nodded curtly, before she yanked her mask from her face. Her flak jacket followed next, but she didn’t bother to change out of her ANBU pants or the under armour. She simply pulled on her yukata over it to hide the tattoo on her shoulder.  
“I’m going to find Shisui”, she said to Itachi and was gone in the next moment. Itachi sighed. Maybe Shisui would be able to calm her a bit. They had been inseparable the last couple of days. Even more so than usual.  
“What’s up with her?”, Yūgao asked with furrowed brows. Itachi just shook his head.  
“I don’t know”, he lied, because he did know. He knew all too well. He had the same poison running through his veins, that threatened to tear his twin apart.  


Kasumi found Shisui at a training ground close to the Academy. He wasn’t appointed any missions outside the village, so he could react at any given time and put Fugaku underneath his Kotoamatsukami. Since it was the same for Kasumi and Itachi, they had a lot of time to spend together. It was the only good thing to come from the whole situation.  
Kasumi let herself fall next to Shisui onto the grass. He immediately put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. They didn’t say a word. Just basking in the proximity of the other.  


Grass beneath them and blue sky above them, one could imagine to be content. _Only for a moment._ Before reality would pull them back with harsh, cruel fingers.  
“I snapped at my team and my taichō today”, Kasumi confessed in a low tone. Shisui’s arm tightened around her, pulling her a bit closer. Kasumi snuggled her head a bit more into the crook of his neck.  
“Not much longer”, he promised and kissed the crown of her head. “You’re strong. Keep fighting.”  
Kasumi’s lips pulled into a minuscule smile. She thought of the picnic he had promised her. After dating for a bit more than three months, they had yet to go on a proper date. Kasumi looked forward to it with a giddiness, that horrified her at times. Uchiha were _not_ giddy.  


The faint bell of the Academy, signalling the end of classes, had Kasumi’s head perk up. Shisui let his chakra spike and a moment later, he grinned.  
“Sasuke’s on his way here”, he said. Kasumi smiled at that.  
“Then maybe we should get up, ne?”, she said, her tone finally a bit lighter. “He’s just a kid.” Shisui laughed and pulled her a bit closer, crushing her body against his. Kasumi lifted her head to look at him. Just as Shisui leaned in and kissed her, Sasuke stormed onto the training ground.  
“EW!”, they heard him shout. Then the tell-tale sound of hands smacking over eyes. Shisui chuckled into the kiss and let go of Kasumi. The black-haired girl smiled and pecked him on the lips once more, before she got up from the ground and looked at her younger brother.  
Sasuke had his hands over his eyes and his nose wrinkled in disgust.  
“ _Ma~_ Sasuke”, Kasumi teased and poked his cheek affectionately. “Are you embarrassed by a little kiss?”  
“NO!”, he yelled immediately, ripping his hands from his eyes and glaring at his sister. Kasumi felt her smile come a bit easier.  
“Not? Hm…could have fooled me”, she smiled and Sasuke puffed out his cheeks.  
Shisui stood and slung an arm around Kasumi’s shoulders. “Why don’t we sit down in the shadows, eh?” He pointed towards the trees lining the meadow.  
“But I want to train!”, Sasuke protested immediately. Kasumi shook her head fondly at her brother.  
“We will train”, she said and started to walk to the trees Shisui had pointed at. “But first we eat and you tell Shisui and I what you’ve learnt at the Academy today, ne?”  


And this was how Sasuke, Shisui and Kasumi ended up sitting in the shades of training ground three with bentōs in front of them. Shisui leaning against a tree and Kasumi leaning against him, while Sasuke sat in front of them and told them with a large smile and wide gestures, what he had learnt that day.  
“—and then Naruto, _that dobe_ , burst through the window with a bed linen thrown over him and Iruka-sensei _exploded_!”, Sasuke’s expression was caught somewhere between amusement and annoyance.  
“Oi!”, Shisui chided, while Kasumi chuckled. “Where did you learn _dobe_? That’s not a word used by a kid like you.” Sasuke pointed at Kasumi without any hesitation.  
“Traitor”, she whispered at him, but her eyes gleamed with mirth and her lips were finally pulled into an honest smile. Shisui just shook his head with fond exasperation. Their eyes locked for a moment. Shisui’s expression softened and Kasumi’s smile turned a bit brighter.  
“Can we train now?”, Sasuke asked, completely oblivious to the situation. Kasumi blinked.  
“Hai”, she said out of instinct, before she turned to look at her brother. “Why don’t you try to change the trajectory of a kunai, hm? I can show you how to do it and then you can try it yourself.” Sasuke beamed up at her in unadulterated eagerness. The hard gleam, that hadn’t left Kasumi’s eyes for weeks softened a bit.  


She stood and lead Sasuke further down the tree line, where wooden targets were placed all over the tree trunks.  
“See, you have to throw the first kunai like usual.” She threw a kunai, that embedded itself far off the target.  
“You missed!”, Sasuke frowned. His sister _never_ missed. Just like his brother. He also never missed.  
Kasumi nodded. “Yes, because you have to calculate how you change the trajectory with the second kunai. Look.” She threw another kunai and right after it a second. This time both hit bull’s eye on two different targets.  
Sasuke’s eyes widened.  
“Remember, angle of entrance equals angle of exit. You have to calculate how you throw the kunai in a way, that when the second hits the first, they change trajectory to hit the target”, she looked at her brother, who had his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth pinched into a tight line. _Such a cutie._ Kasumi smiled.  
“Understood?”  
Sasuke furrowed his brows some more. “I think”, he answered.  
“Well, the rest is practise”, Kasumi said and pointed back to where they came from. “I’ll be over there with Shisui and we’re going to watch you, okay?”  
Sasuke nodded, already concentrated on throwing his kunai. Kasumi hummed proudly and went to sit next to Shisui again.  


“He’s relentless”, Shisui chuckled, as Kasumi sat down next to him, slightly leaning into his side. Their chakra mingled with each other. Comforting. Reassuring.  
Kasumi sighed as if the burden of the world weighed on her slim shoulders. “In a world like this…it’s a good thing, that he is”, she said in a somber tone. “It’ll make sure he survives.”  
Shisui’s arm tightened around her waist. Comforting. Reassuring.  
“Keep him close this evening”, he said lowly. Kasumi’s heart stopped.  
“Today?”  
“…hai.”  
Kasumi swallowed thickly.  
“Okay.”  
Shisui pulled her closer yet. She felt his smooth lips kissing her temple fondly.  
“And tomorrow we’ll have that picnic, yes?”, he said and Kasumi felt him smile against her skin.  
“That sounds nice”, she answered and despite the countless worries wracking her mind, she found herself smiling as well.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Itachi and Kasumi, as similar as they were, had different ways to cope with stress. While Itachi went to meditate some place secluded, Kasumi usually vented the stress by training until her body gave out.  
This time, she couldn’t do that. She had promised Shisui to have an eye on Sasuke. Therefore, she sat on the roof of her home, right above Sasuke’s room and stared into the darkening sky. A sense of foreboding grabbed her heart with chilling fingers.  


_“Whatever happens today, remember I love you.”_  


Kasumi swallowed thickly, the prickling in her eyes an unpleasant sensation. It was as if she could still feel Shisui’s lips on hers after he said those words. Soft and urgent and desperate. A hint of sunshine and salt. Kasumi swallowed again. Everything would be fine. Shisui was strong and determined. Tomorrow…tomorrow they’d have the picnic and the world would be a better place.  


It had to be.  


Kasumi felt her heart _ache_ with the love she held. For her clan. For Itachi. For Sasuke. For Shisui.  
She _hoped_ and she _prayed_ in the silent dusk, that she was enough to keep them save. That Itachi, Shisui and her would keep them all save.  
She wished for Sasuke to never have to bear the burden of betrayal.  
She wished for Itachi to finally find peace.  
She wished for Shisui to never loose his smile.  
And she wished she was strong enough to ensure all that.  


Her dark eyes travelled to the last light of the sun on the horizon. She had to have faith. A shaky breath left her trembling lips.  
Faith, that everything would be okay one day soon.  


That the Will of Fire running through her very being was strong enough to not be tainted by her clan’s Curse of Hatred. Just like Shisui was a bright light in the darkness. An anchor in the storm. A fire in the cold. Like Itachi. Calm and unmovable from their path. And Kasumi hoped, that she could be just as bright a light as those two.  
She could feel her father leaving the house.  
Soon.  


_Soon…_  


And so Kasumi waited. And hoped. And prayed.  
But with every minute she waited a chilling cold seeped into her bones. Her heart ached more with every beat.  
Worry gnawed like a starved beast at her insides, slowly ripping her apart with glee. 

As the sun set and darkness settled over the world like a suffocating blanket, Kasumi lost faith.  


Then Itachi appeared next to her and Kasumi knew with a sudden, harrowing clarity, that nothing would ever be okay again.  


He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.  
Unspeakable sorrow rolled off of him in waves, that felt as if Kasumi was drowning in them.  
His eyes glowed brighter than ever, spinning with the horrors of the Mangekyō Sharingan. Trails of bloody tears caked on his cheeks.  


One of his hands was completely bloody. The thick, crimson liquid slowly dripping from it.  
The other was curled around a hitai-ate with black cloth.  


Kasumi couldn’t breath anymore. The world lost it’s gravity as her whole being zeroed in on all-consuming despair.  


Itachi fell to his knees, more bloody tears running down his face.  
“I couldn’t…couldn’t save…” His voice broke. Kasumi’s own throat closed up. Her eyes burned with tears and her vision blurred.  
She rose to her knees in an instant and slung her arms around her twin. Itachi didn’t respond.  


“Danzō w-waited for h-him”, Itachi’s voice was raw and thin. “He stole…s-stole his right e-eye.”  
Kasumi choked at that. Itachi shook in her arms. Or did the sobs wreck her own body so much?  
She didn’t know. Knew nothing but the agonising pain that ripped her heart apart and tore her soul to pieces.  
“He gave m-me his…his o-other—” Itachi’s voice broke and a choked sob escaped his lips. Kasumi tightened her embrace, tears streaming down her face without restraint.  
Her whole body seemed to burn in hell fire and drown in an ocean of ice at the same time. Nothing made sense anymore.  


Itachi pulled slightly away and Kasumi felt the hitai-ate being pushed into her hands. She looked up, but the tears had blurred her world to nothing but pain.  
“H-he said to…to t-tell you—” Itachi’s voice broke again. Kasumi heaved for breaths, but no air wanted to enter her lungs. She was drowning.  
Itachi put a hand on the back of her head and let his forehead slump against hers. He took a deep, shaky breath. He _needed_ to say these words.  
“He’s s-sorry”, he whispered roughly, “that h-he broke—” Kasumi choked on a sob.  
“Broke h-his promise.”  


The wave crashed into her, ripping everything from Kasumi that made her herself. Ripping her breath and her heart and her very soul from her body.  
Her hands clenched around the hitai-ate, the metal plate cutting into her palm. She didn’t feel the pain, as she wept with gut-wrenching sobs. Itachi’s pain calmer, but no less heartbreaking in his silent, bloody tears.  
They clung to each other as if it would save them from drowning. But it was too late.  


There was no pain. Not anymore.  
Only the numb certainty of death.  


_  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry.


	7. dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: death, grief and gore
> 
>   
> For the full experience, listen to "Harry And Grace Make Peace" from the Armageddon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Morning came with soft wings of a crow and pale blue skies the next day.  


Kasumi and Itachi woke next to each other, faces pale, skin ashen and eyes red. They didn’t speak. Not even the other’s presence could sooth the pain that day.  
The motions they went through to prepare for the day were automatic. Kasumi felt strangely detached, as if she was watching herself from far away.  
It didn’t feel real.  


She didn’t wear her usual navy blue yukata. It didn’t feel right.  
Instead her body was clad in black pants and a casual black kimono top. Her hands shook as they hovered above the hitai-ate Itachi brought back.  
As Kasumi left her room, it still sat on the small table next to her bed. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch it.  


Fugaku didn’t ask, how they knew about Shisui. Mikoto shushed Sasuke’s questions as soon as the twins entered the kitchen.  
Breakfast was a silent affair that day.  


“They found a note”, their father said. Kasumi almost broke again. He had known something would go wrong. Her mind was filled with their last moments together. That desperate kiss.  


_“Whatever happens today, remember I love you.”_  


Kasumi swallowed, but the lump in her throat didn’t budge. Her eyes burned.  
“There will be a memorial this afternoon”, Fugaku continued. Kasumi didn’t feel herself nod. It didn’t feel real.  


She wasn’t sure what she did the rest of the day. She remembered sitting on her bed with her legs pulled to her chest, Itachi next to her.  
Her eyes fixed on Shisui’s hitai-ate.  
Their mother was calling them for dinner. They didn’t move. Or did they? Kasumi didn’t remember if they did or not.  


The sun gleamed on the metal plate with Konoha’s emblem.  
There was a speck of dried blood on the black cloth.  


“It’s time”, she heard Itachi’s voice.  
Kasumi felt herself nod and stand as if she was a puppet and someone pulled her strings.  
The black mourning kimono was heavy as it settled on her skin. It still didn’t feel real.  


Kasumi looked up, as she walked behind her parents through the cemetery. Blue skies.  
A sad smile pulled at the corner’s of her mouth. Shisui’s favourite colour.  


Her fingers trembled as they ran over the smooth sandalwood of her prayer beads. Lips moved to the chants of the Uchiha priest without her consciously doing so.  
Itachi was next to her and their chakra mingled. It was probably inappropriate, but they needed the support of the other to get through this.  
All too soon the chants were finished, flowers put down and incense burnt. Evergreen, jasmine and honeysuckle filled the air.  


The people left. Grim expressions on their faces and determination in their hatred.  
Kasumi didn’t notice. Neither did Itachi.  
They stood next to each other in front of the large wall, their shoulders touching and their chakra mingling.  
Their parents and Sasuke were long gone. To get back to the wake at the Naka Shrine in the Uchiha compound.  


But Kasumi and Itachi remained. Hearts heavy and minds numb.  
Shisui’s name had joined the others on the wall. It’s lettering still new and shiny and beautiful.  


And suddenly, suddenly it felt all too real.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

That evening found Kasumi in her ANBU uniform sitting in seiza in front of Shisui’s name. Darkness crept over the village and shadows grew into large monsters eager to swallow anything and everything.  
Kasumi held his hitai-ate in her hands as they rested on her knees. Her upper body slightly bent and her eyes closed.  
There were no tears. She had none left to cry.  


_“You’re strong. Keep fighting.”_  


Kasumi’s full lips pressed together.  
She wanted to scream at him. Ask him how she should fight without his light? How she should keep going without him anchoring her?  
But there wouldn’t be an answer.  


Shisui was gone.  


_“H-he said to…to t-tell you— that he’s s-sorry… h-he broke his p-promise.”_  


Her hands tightened around the hitai-ate.  
“Baka”, she whispered to the darkness and wind, voice filled with heartbreaking agony. “You should’ve let me protect you.”  
She felt Itachi’s chakra before she heard him approach. His steps deliberately making noise.  
Kasumi didn’t lift her gaze from the hitai-ate.  


“The foolishness of our clan caused his death”, Itachi said calmly, tone without emotion. “It’s time we act.”  
Kasumi took a deep breath as her heart clenched at the truth in her twin’s words. Then she hardened it and for a moment poisonous hatred flooded her veins.  
“He asked us to protect the village and the Uchiha name”, Itachi continued. Kasumi’s face steeled into an expressionless mask. The hatred washed away. It wouldn’t do any good. I wouldn’t be what Shisui had wished for.  
“Let’s honour his last wish.”  


Her anchor was gone.  


_“You’re strong. Keep fighting.”_  


Kasumi stood, her eyes opening and immediately fixing themselves onto Shisui’s name. Her hands moved on their own, as she tied Shisui’s hitai-ate around her head.  
Her eyes swirled into her three-tomoe sharingan as they met with Itachi’s eerily spinning Mangekyō Sharingan.  


_“Whatever happens today, remember I love you.”_  


If there was no anchor, she would become the storm.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi ruthlessly defeated anyone coming against her in the game of protect the flag. Kakashi had ordered them to train their awareness at night with it at the end of the training session. Itachi, not willing to leave her side after the loss, had flat out refused to be on a different team than his twin. Kakashi, instinctively knowing that something was off, had relented and allowed them to protect the flag against the rest of Team Ro.  
They didn’t stand a chance against the twins.  


Itachi stayed behind at the flag, knowing that his sister needed to vent her anger so it wouldn’t fester into hatred. He would pick up whoever got past her.  
Kasumi, usually one to stay at the flag with traps and tricks, rushed away to actively seek out her opponents. Her genjutsu weren’t nice this time. They were cruel and scarring. Leaving Kō and Tenzō shivering and whimpering on the ground, curled into tight balls.  
As Itachi took care of Yōji and Yūgao, Kasumi engaged Kakashi in a rough fight.  


He had never felt her hit so hard or cut so sharp with her katana. Katon fuelled with fūton scorched half of the trees, as Kakashi was just able to sink into the earth to avoid being grilled.  
Razor sharp focus in gleaming, red eyes met him as soon as he left his hiding place. Then there was nothing, all his senses were cut off and he was acutely, terrifyingly aware of it. Kakashi knew suddenly, that he was caught in her genjutsu.  
It took him longer than he liked to admit to get free of it.  


By then, Kasumi had awoken the others from the genjutsu she had put them under. She stood next to Itachi, muscles tense and body rigid. Their chakra mingling more than usual.  
Tenzō approached Kasumi, who immediately moved in sync to him, as if she was still wired to attack. She looked like a jungle cat backed into a corner.  
Kakashi furrowed his brows behind his dog mask. _This was not good._  


“Kasumi, are you…okay?”, Tenzō asked calmly, but was clever enough not to approach further. Itachi stiffened. Kakashi saw how Kasumi forced herself to relax at least a bit. She wasn’t very successful.  
“Kakashi-taichō told me to get rid of my distraction or to get out”, her voice was cold and strangely detached. “I got rid of it.”  
Kakashi felt as if he was slapped. In the next moment, Kasumi had vanished in a fast shunshin. The training had ended with the game, after all.  


Itachi twitched, as if he wanted to follow her, but knew better than to actually do it.  
“Ne, Itachi, what the hell is up with your sister?”, Yūgao demanded to know, as she healed a nasty cut on Kō’s arm. “She just runs off to find that boyfriend of hers all the time. Then she’s all distracted and now she is way too hard during training. We’re her friends, too. We’d listen, if something is wrong. Or if we need to teach her boyfriend how to treat women.” Itachi’s head shot up at that. His eyes gleaming blood-red.  
Kakashi’s own eyes widened, when he saw the intricate pattern of a Mangekyō Sharingan swirl beneath the mask.  
“Shisui is dead”, Itachi said in a flat tone. “He committed suicide last night.” With that he vanished, too.  


“Fuck”, Kō cursed.  
Kakashi felt as if he was hit by his own Chidori. His muscles tensed in a fight or flight instinct. Old pain resurfaced and felt like acid on his tongue.  
Blood seeping through tatami mats. Dark pools of liquid in the night. A crumbled frame—  
“Dismissed”, he said sharply to stop his own thoughts. Team Ro vanished, Tenzō a bit hesitantly, but Kakashi needed time for himself now. And as he dove against a wooden dummy to beat it with fast, hard taijutsu, he could perfectly understand why his youngest team member had been so ruthless today.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Four weeks and three days since Shisui’s death.  


Kasumi sighed as her hand unconsciously ran over the black cloth of her hitai-ate. No one had commented on it, although most had noticed, that she wasn’t wearing her own navy-blue one any longer. She had stopped wearing all black, though. Shisui had been a ray of sunshine and a breath of fresh air, nothing stiff and dull like black.  
She wanted to honour him, not mourn him to a second death within her memory.  


But with his death, something essential had changed. Kasumi could feel it in her bones and in the wind whispering of carnage and tragedy. Fate was coming.  
A chill had settled in her heart with the haunting knowledge, that not everyone would be saved and she would be judge and executioner.  
Ironically enough, Shisui’s death and the tension surrounding Itachi had led to her father appointing her with more clan duties than ever. Kasumi, always on better footing with their parents despite the views she shared with Itachi, had not met the same wave of distrust that came from the clan, as her twin.  
Maybe they knew Shisui and her had been a couple. The two of them hadn’t been exactly clandestine with their affections.  
Maybe they sensed in a strange, instinctual way, that Itachi had abandoned his clan with Shisui’s death. Kasumi was not yet willing to give up on all of them.  


Oh, she knew, that the majority was up for treason against Konohagakure, the Council and the Hokage. And those would meet their fair sentence. Yet there were innocents among the Uchiha and those, who were still openly voicing their doubt, that a coup would be the best course of action. Old Kanna for example. Kasumi was willing to fight for them, too, not just Sasuke.  
Her father had undoubtedly sensed, that while both his eldest children were pulling away, Kasumi wasn’t all gone yet. He had taken her to clan meetings with the Hyūga or the Aburame; had shown her how to unseal the secret scrolls only prone to the Clan Head’s eyes; had honed her more than ever before to become his successor, although Itachi was technically the eldest child. It tore Kasumi’s soul all the more.  


_“You’re strong. Keep fighting.”_  


The memory of Shisui’s unwavering faith in her and the presence of Itachi’s calm determination were the only things keeping her from breaking under the pressure.  
Two hearts were beating in her chest, one for Konoha and one for her clan. Or maybe it were two halves of what had been whole once? Shredded by pain and torn by duty, bleeding poison into her veins. It couldn’t be helped or healed, Kasumi knew that as a fact. There was just putting one foot in front of the other. Step by step, as she slowly came to accept her fate.  


The gravel of the main path through the Uchiha compound crunched underneath her sandals, as Kasumi did not bother to soften her steps with chakra. Her navy-blue kimono blouse with the Uchiha fan on it’s collar showed a tight under armour shirt beneath it, that hugged her skin snug up to her throat like a turtle-neck. As a woman, she was not expected to wear the wide, high-collared shirts typical for male Uchiha. And her figure had yet to mature to a point, where she had any noteworthy cleavage to show, if she wanted to.  
Junpei and two of his closest assistants stepped out of her home the moment Kasumi came into view of it. Her eyes narrowed as she could almost taste the distrust in the air. She instinctively channelled chakra into her hearing.  


“Yes, we do, you punk. And you’ll pay big time.”  


Before Kasumi could react, Itachi had them on the ground. He crouched next to their strewn out forms. Kasumi repressed a sigh. She understood, that Itachi was under just as much pressure as her. But it didn’t help, that he was constantly looking for an actual fight with their clansmen. Something so out of character for him, that Kasumi wondered how long it was before he snapped. It really was a dangerous gamble. Would he snap first…or she herself?  
“You overestimate your own abilities”, Itachi told them in a flat voice, “and have no idea about the depth of my own.”  
The three men on the ground got up and into fighting stances, just as Itachi rose as well, a defiant look on his pretty face.  


“Junpei-san”, Kasumi addressed in a cutting tone, authority raw and inescapable. All four turned towards her as if whipped, three with wide eyes and Itachi with an adorably annoyed expression hidden behind a distant mask.  
“Kasumi-sama”, the three elder bowed their head. Kasumi’s left eye twitched.  
“Have you been accusing my _twin_ again of murdering my _boyfriend_?” The chill in her voice made the grown men squirm. Kasumi had always been an impressive presence, intimidating even at her young age. Striking beauty mixed with a sharp intellect and a straight back unused to bow. Itachi had always known, that she was the harder one of them, although she was more indecisive than him.  
Shisui’s death had changed that in a way. It had made her eyes calculating and her demeanour more controlled. With her unwavering love to their clan, despite their shortcomings, he knew her to be the more dangerous one of them. Itachi was stronger, especially with the Mangekyō Sharingan, yes, but Kasumi fought with more heart.  


When neither Junpei nor his men answered, Kasumi pursed her lips some more.  
“Please refrain from defacing Shisui’s memento any further”, she said calmly, dark eyes fixed on Junpei in an unyielding stare.  
“Hai, Kasumi-sama”, he said and ushered his men away. Not without a last scathing look at Itachi.  
Kasumi took the few steps separating them and hooked her right arm underneath his left. Her warm chakra curling around her brother like a blanket, shielding him from the negativity penetrating the compound like the nauseating stench of death.  
“Our clan has become pitiful”, he murmured lowly, so only she could hear.  
Kasumi nodded. “It has, but we will free them from the hatred and lead them to better times.” Her dark eyes looked to the entrance, where Sasuke had watched everything with wide eyes and an open mouth.  
“For Sasuke”, she whispered. Itachi turned his head and looked at Sasuke. Twin eyes boring into the young boy, before they vanished together in a fast shunshin.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi crouched in the tree next to Kakashi. The weight of the katana on her back as habitual as her slightly condensing breath behind the porcelain mask. Her hair was up in a high pony tail and her whole being focused on the beautiful compound in front of them. By now, the slight crackling in the air, that was always around Kakashi, was as familiar and as soothing as the warmth of Itachi’s chakra.  
It had taken Kasumi more than two years to completely warm up to her taichō and Team Ro, but once she had, their team work had improved drastically.  


Their mission was plain enough: assassinate the merchant, who secretly financed a small cell of rebels against the Fire daimyō, but harm no one else.  
Kasumi and Kakashi shared a look and Kakashi nodded. They had formed the plan a few hours ago after they had scouted the perimeter. Without any words flowing between them, Kakashi started making hand seals and a moment later thick mist flowed from his mouth, engulfing the entire mansion.  
The tree bark cracked a bit beneath her feet as Kasumi pushed herself off with a slightly chakra induced jump. Sharingan blazing like a demon’s eyes in the mist. It was the last thing the guards saw, before they were caught in a short genjutsu, that enabled Kasumi to hit them in the neck. The guards were unconscious within a minute.  


Kasumi flickered into the office, sharingan still glowing behind her mask. Quick, slender fingers shifted through stacks of paper and hidden compartments to gather everything even remotely connected to the rebel cell. A short spike of chakra told her, that her taichō had finished with his part of the mission. One last look around with the formidable sight of her crimson eyes and Kasumi was satisfied.  
She circled back to the tree they had sat in previously, where Kakashi already waited on her. They didn’t nod, didn’t say a word, Kasumi simply rushed past him and Kakashi took off after her, both vanishing into the night. Their mission a success and their way home a silent affair. Both weren’t much of a talker, anyway. And Kasumi even less since Shisui’s death.  


They arrived in Konoha late in the evening three days later. Itachi was just stripping out of his flak jacket, when they entered the locker room.  
Warm chakra mingled in a non-verbal greeting and a tiny smile curled around Kasumi’s lips.  
“I’ll report”, Kakashi said as he pulled the dog mask from his face. “You’re dismissed. Good work, Kasumi-san.”  
“Thank you, Kakashi-taichō”, Kasumi nodded and brushed Itachi’s shoulder as she walked past him to her own locker.  


Itachi waited for her to finish changing so they could leave together. Just as they were about to leave the building, Danzō stepped out of the shadows next to the entrance. His one-eyed gaze fixed on the twins. Then he silently walked away, his cane clacking on the ground. Itachi and Kasumi followed without question.  


“Sandaime-sama is waiting too long”, Danzō said as soon as he had stopped. He turned towards them. Kasumi’s gaze flickered to his bandaged eye. She knew what lay beneath and it made her blood boil with unadulterated rage.  
“He does whatever is needed to save Konohagakure, but he is slow in his decisions and hesitant in striking”, Danzō continued. “We all know, that there is nothing left, that could deter the Uchiha from their plan.” His one visible eye bored into the twins; first Kasumi, then Itachi.  
They remained silent, even as Kasumi’s gut churned.  
“Align with the Uchiha and launch the coup d’état…and you will die with them”, Danzō said, his tone grave, but his gaze utterly unreadable. “But if you align with Konohagakure and eliminate every Uchiha except that little brother of yours…and at least you three shall survive.”  
“There are innocents in our clan”, Kasumi objected immediately. “Children!” Danzō’s eye lowered onto her.  
“We have no certainty, that they won’t avenge the slaughter”, he said coolly. Kasumi’s left eye twitched.  
Itachi shifted his chakra to sooth his sister. “What certainty do you have, that we won’t take revenge?”, he asked.  
“Uchiha Sasuke”, was all Danzō said, but it was enough. “I advise you, to make sure he doesn’t blame the village for the slaughter. Otherwise we might take action against him…” The threat was thinly veiled. Kasumi felt nauseous. Bile rose in her throat and bitter acid laced her tongue as she tried to swallow down her hatred.  
“Will you accept this mission?”, Danzō asked and really, there was only one answer for Itachi and Kasumi, because in the end, they both loved too deeply, too recklessly and too irrevocably.  


“Hai.”  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Itachi and Kasumi did not go home after that. They found their way to the cliff above the Naka River, where Shisui had died.  
They stood next to each other in the darkness, nothing to be heard but the loud rushing of water beneath them. Wind tousled Kasumi’s hair softly and Itachi had to lift a hand to keep his long bangs out of his eyes.  
“Otō-san has the Mangekyō”, he said after a while. Kasumi felt as if a stone was put into her stomach. Heavy and cold.  
“So there really is no way around it”, she sighed. Itachi shook his head and silence settled over them once more.  
It wasn’t a comfortable silence such as usual between them, but a tense one, filled with dangerous thoughts and devastating certainty.  


They would slaughter their clan. All but Sasuke.  


A cold truth, hard to swallow, as if one would try to eat nails and acid. Kasumi’s mouth was dry and her heart dark as she looked over the river beneath them.  
For a horrible moment, she thought, that it would be so easy to join Shisui. But if there was an afterlife, he would scold her like no tomorrow, if she followed him too soon. Twelve weeks and five days wasn’t that long, after all. Her gaze did not shift to her twin, but she became overly aware of his chakra next to her.  
Ah. She would never be able to leave him and Sasuke. Who would put their heads straight, if not her?  
And she wanted to have many stories to tell Shisui, once she’d see him again.  


“We can’t both take the blame”, she said lowly, her thoughts with Sasuke. He shouldn’t be left alone after what was to come…  
Itachi hummed in agreement. “I will leave. I am already the one more distant from the clan”, he said calmly. “Me turning against the clan is more logical, than you turning against them.”  
Kasumi didn’t argue. She knew he was right, no matter how much it pained her.  
“And Sasuke has to blame you, too”, she said lowly. _So he doesn’t blame the village._  
“Hai.” _To keep him save from Danzō._  
Kasumi’s shoulders shook with a deep, heart-breaking sigh. Her eyes still fixed on the rushing water beneath them. _What has her life come to be?_ She loved her clan dearly, but she could not condone their schemes. For she loved her home just as much. And her brothers more than anything else. Loved them with a desperation that scared her at times. For them…she would truly to anything without regret. Even slaughter innocents.  
Kasumi knew within the shredded pieces of her torn heart, that to save what she loved the most, she needed to sacrifice whatever else she held dear.  


“I will help with the killing”, she said, tone utterly flat. The decision had been made and she would not stray from it. “But once we’re done, you have to make it look as if you attacked me, too.”  
“Even if I would miss all vital organs, you would bleed out before ANBU could find you”, Itachi argued with slightly furrowed brows, “Trying to execute you like the rest would not work.”  
“Then you have to poison me”, Kasumi said nonchalantly. “I would not expect my tea to be poisoned within my own home, after all.”  
Itachi mulled it over and nodded. “I’ll nick something from Yōji tomorrow. The antidote will be easily found then.”  


The air shifted around them. The twins swirled around in unison, their movement perfectly synchronised, their chakra coiling into tight pools of power and their muscles tense in alertness.  
“Ah, such a magnificent sight.”  
A man stood behind them, mask covering his face and long, wild hair the colour of the night sky falling freely down his back. A dark yukata was wrapped around his frame, with a white obi holding a long katana. Kasumi could hear the slight mocking in his tone. It didn’t sit well with her.  
That whole man didn’t sit well with her.  


“Who are you?”, Itachi asked calmly. Kasumi tensed her muscles some more. Ready to attack should there be the need to.  
“My name is Uchiha Madara”, the man said and a single Mangekyō Sharingan gleamed from beneath his mask. Kasumi and Itachi shared a glance.  
_It can’t be._ Itachi lowered his head and slowly went to his knees. _It isn’t him._  
_The chakra signature is wrong._ Kasumi followed her brother in the show of deep respect. _But then, who is he?_  
“You have grown quite powerful, eh?” the man said and looked away from their kneeling frames. “But there is yet much to learn for you. Join my organisation and you will become even stronger.”  
“Your organisation?”, Itachi asked and lifted his head to look at the man.  
“I call it the Akatsuki”, the man said and Kasumi’s mouth twitched. “We work to find peace for the Nations.”  
Kasumi and Itachi shared another glance. Their chakra mingled as one, providing an unspoken conversation.  
“I will join, if you help us with the annihilation of the Uchiha clan”, Itachi offered and slowly stood. Kasumi following his example with smooth movements.  
“Well, well”, the man said, satisfaction dripping from his voice like thick honey. “What about you, Kasumi-chan?”  
“Someone has to keep an eye on Danzō”, she replied flatly. The man regarded her for a moment, then he nodded.  
“I see that”, he said. “Find me, once you’re ready.” He vanished in a swirl, that wasn’t typical for a shunshin. Itachi turned his head to look at his twin.  
_Just what was going on?_  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi felt too much and nothing at all. The ANBU gear clung to her slender frame, the cool material of the porcelain mask in her hand.  
Itachi was next to her. He was always next to her. During the good and the bad.  
And the unspeakable.  


They stopped in front of the main gate to the compound. No sound disturbed the evening.  
Itachi turned towards his sister and Kasumi mirrored his movement. He tenderly put a hand to the back of her head and let his forehead fall against hers.  
There were no words they could possibly say to comfort each other.  
Kasumi took a deep breath, trying to find strength in her twin’s presence. Her eyes fluttered closed, just as Itachi’s had been closed from the moment their foreheads had touched.  
A shaky breath escaped his lips. And Kasumi’s heart broke more even as she had thought it impossible.  


It was a stolen moment of peace, of doubt and of determination. When they opened their eyes in sync, staring at each other, eyes blazing a demonic red, they knew what they had to do.  
Sharingan met Mangekyō Sharingan. Intertwined in an ancient dance of trust and sorrow and love.  
It felt as if time slipped away for a second.  


Then there was nothing left to do. Nothing left to say.  
It was three months and twenty one days since Shisui’s death, when Kasumi pulled her mask over her face and unsheathed her katana.  


_  
_

_  
_

_  
_

_Easy._  
_It’s too easy._  
Kasumi’s mind was a frenzy of guilt and sorrow and anger and hatred and _so much guilt._  
She cut them all down. Her katana slicing through flesh as if it was paper.  
Junpei died by her hand and Old Kanna. And Kazu-chan. And Ai-chan. And a babe in a cradle. And Shisui’s uncle. And everyone that came at her with fire and fury.  


Her eyes burned from hot tears beneath her mask and the aching pain of a newly awakened Mangekyō Sharingan.  
She was unstoppable. Untameable.  
She was the storm bringing destruction and death.  
A storm without an anchor.  


_  
_

_  
_

_  
_

The copper scent hung heavy in the evening air. Dusk was setting over Konohagakure, when the crimson seeped into the ground of the esteemed Uchiha compound.  
Itachi and Kasumi met at their home. Faces grim and bodies splattered with blood.  
“There are no traps”, they heard their father say. “Come in.”  
They stared at each other, but obeyed a last time in their lives.  


When they entered the living room, their father and mother knelt with their backs to them. The room was plunged in the same darkness, that had taken over Kasumi’s heart.  
“You’ve aligned with the other side”, their father said. His dark voice tired.  
“Otō-san. Okā-san”, Itachi whispered in a strangled manner.  
“Itachi. Kasumi”, their father said. “Promise me this. Take care of Sasuke.”  
Kasumi tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Tears freely flowing down her cheeks. Her heart ached with longing.  
“We will”, she promised. She heard Itachi’s grip tighten around his katana.  
“Kasumi”, their father spoke up again. “Take my eyes. They are yours.”  
Her knuckles turned white around the handle of her own katana. It’s blade shook slightly in her quivering hands.  
“Itachi. Kasumi”, their mother said lowly. “We will always love you.”  
A strangled gasp escaped Kasumi’s lips.  
“Don’t fear this”, their father said. “This is the path you have chosen. Our philosophies may differ, but we are proud of you.”  
Itachi’s katana shook with the silent sobs wrecking his body.  
“You truly are kind children.”  
Kasumi steeled her heart. Closed it off and shut it away in darkness.  
Her last whisper a desperate prayer.  
“I’m sorry.”  


The slice was strong and fast. Metal gleamed in the dim light.  
Kasumi’s eyes widened, as she saw the bodies of her parents slowly slump to the side. Crimson blood pooling around them.  
A sob wrangled it’s way out of her throat. Raw and ugly.  


Her body moved on it’s own in a foggy detachment, as she knelt down next to her father and expertly extracted his eyes. Slender fingers shook, as she sealed the eyes into a scroll.  
“Take them with you”, she said to her twin, her voice entirely emotionless. “They will search the compound and they can’t be found. Send them in a few days.”  
Itachi nodded, tears still streaming down his cheeks.  
“We don’t have much time”, he said flatly, just as emotionally detached as Kasumi. Contrasting their tears harshly.  


They shunshined into Kasumi’s room, where she hastily stripped out of the ANBU uniform for Itachi to take it with him. Making sure, that there was no speck of blood on her body, Kasumi slipped into her casual attire and looked up towards her twin.  
_This was it._  
Itachi handed her a cup with cold tea he had prepared while she had changed. Their eyes locked and Kasumi’s Mangekyō Sharingan spun.  


Suddenly the world was plunged into an open field, where rain pounded heavily down on them.  
“What is this?”, Itachi asked and looked around warily.  
“Omoikane”, Kasumi whispered. Tea cup still in her hand. She didn’t know, how she knew it. She just did. “The ability of my Mangekyō.”  
Itachi furrowed his brows. “We have no time to explore it.”  
“Hai”, Kasumi nodded slowly, crimson eyes still trailing through the dark world. She looked up and felt so utterly lost, as she let the rain pound onto her skin.  
_Maybe it could wash away her guilt._  


She felt Itachi’s arms wrap around her.  
“I love you”, he whispered into her ear.  
“And I love you”, Kasumi answered. She closed her eyes as yet another tear spilt out and the spook was over.  


They were back in her room. Kasumi sat down onto her bed and placed a book next to her.  
Itachi looked at her. _Take care._  
Kasumi smiled sadly at him and took a sip from her tea. This was goodbye. _Maybe it could be see you again…_  


The poison was fast to react. She felt it burn in her veins.  
Her skin prickled with fire. It became hard to breath.  
“Ita-kun”, she pleaded in agony. Her world fogged and darkness gripped at her with greedy hands. _It burnt like hell fire._  
“Stay…sa—ve.”  
_She was in hell, wasn’t she?_  


Itachi watched her frame slump and crumble to the side. Her breathing shallow and her skin taking an ashen tint.  
Hot tears burnt their way down his cheeks.  
“I will”, he promised barely audible.  


He couldn’t break away from the sight in front of him. His heart broke over and over again. _This truly was hell._  
But he had to go. He had Sasuke to take care of.  
He bowed down and gently pushed a strand of silky, dark hair out of her face. Lingered for a second. Allowed himself one last time the soothing warmth of her chakra.  


Then he was gone.  


…and only sorrow was left.  


_  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one really hurt.


	8. numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does one go on after their whole world crashed and burnt?

Kakashi was just about to cut the eggplants to put them into his miso soup, when Tenzō suddenly appeared in his kitchen.  
“There was an incident at the Uchiha compound”, Tenzō said before Kakashi had the time to react. The words had him spring into action immediately. He turned off the stove and pulled the pot aside. His uniform only lacked the mask anyway, so he and Tenzō were on their way to the Uchiha compound in less than a minute.  


There was much, that Kakashi had seen in his young life. As he stepped foot into the Uchiha compound and the heavy, coppery scent of blood filled his sensitive nose, he knew immediately that this would be one of those sights haunting him in his dreams. Corpses were strewn everywhere, arcs of blood created a horrifying picture and death hung heavy above everything.  
“Team Ro”, the Hokage said, his eyes on the carnage in front of him, his voice old and broken, “see if you find someone alive.”  
There was no hope in his tone. His wrinkles seemed deeper than ever.  


“Kō West. Yōji East. Tenzō North. Yūgao South. I’ll take the centre”, Kakashi ordered in harsh, curt words. He shunshined away, before he heard any confirmation. The centre of the compound housed the Naka Shrine and the main building. His steps were cautious, when he entered the home of the main Uchiha family. Kasumi’s family. Itachi’s family.  
He dreaded, what he might find.  


Mikoto and Fugaku Uchiha laid in the living room, the position of their bodies and their wounds suggesting, that they were executed from behind as they knelt on the ground.  
Kakashi felt bile rise in his throat. Acidic and sharp at the cruel calculation the scene suggested. Hope left him, as he silently rushed through the house.  
Itachi’s room was empty.  
As was Sasuke’s and the main master bedroom.  


He opened the door to Kasumi’s room and his heart stopped.  
Her slender body was sprawled across her bed. Dark hair splayed around her head like the halo of a fallen angel. A book laid open next to her left hand and a broken cup of tea on the ground. But there was no blood.  
Kakashi was across the room in an instant. His fingers dipping into the liquid still in the cup. He sniffed at it. Poison. Then maybe…  


His bi-coloured eyes shot up and his body moved without a clear thought. He was hovering above her within the next second. Brows furrowed in concentration. _Please._  


_  
_

_…please…_  


_  
_

_There!_  
He could hear slow, shallow breaths. His eyes widened.  


Immediately he slung one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees. Her body was a cold, shivering mess of sweat. The harsh stench of poison clinging to her like tar.  
Kakashi didn’t loose another moment, as he lifted her up and jumped out of the open window. En route to the hospital as fast as he could.  


“Yōji!”, he yelled, as he ran past his team mate, who currently reported back to the Hokage. Yōji understood without question, as he joined Kakashi in his mad dash, unable to follow his taichō’s speed. The sandaime Hokage looked after them, his keen eyes recognising the girl in Kakashi’s arms.  
_“It is done. Please look after Sasuke and make sure, that Kasumi is found quickly. I had to poison her to keep up appearances.”_  
Itachi’s carefully emotionless voice echoed in his mind and Hiruzen sighed. He could only hope, that Kakashi was fast enough.  


The silver-haired ANBU crashed through the hospital doors, scaring more than one medic-nin and a large group of civilians. Kasumi laid lifeless in his arms, hair falling down like a waterfall and the arm not pressed against Kakashi’s hard chest motionless swinging with every step he took.  
“HELP!”, Kakashi yelled desperately as the mask of the unapproachable ANBU cracked for a moment under the pressure of loosing even more precious people. Immediately he was swarmed with medics and green chakra, as they ushered him down a corridor and into an examination room. Then Kasumi was ripped from his arms and he was roughly pushed out, suddenly feeling cold and empty.  
“Yōji, go in and help”, he ordered curtly, voice cutting and sharp, as Yōji finally arrived as well. “She was poisoned.” The Aburame nodded and entered the room. He was the poison expert of Team Ro, after all.  


Still strung high with adrenaline, Kakashi took to pacing in the corridor, eyes lifting every so often to glare at the closed door. His muscles were tense and his mind was everywhere and nowhere.  


There was a commotion down the corridor and then chaos ensued, as the tiny frame of Uchiha Sasuke was carried past Kakashi.  
Yūgao stopped next to him, her mask firmly in place, just as his and Yōji’s. Despite the horrors, they were still ANBU. But her frame was slouched and her arms gripped at her sides as if she was cold and tried to keep herself warm.  
“He’s alive. He’ll make it”, she said, her tone wavering slightly. “What about Ōkami?”  
“I don’t know”, Kakashi answered in a carefully neutral tone. He had to be strong. For all of them. Yūgao let her shoulders fall against the wall behind her. Her frame slumped and a shaky sigh left her throat.  
“Fucking hell of a shit show.”  


Kakashi thought that didn’t even start to sum up this mess.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Everything in the hospital room was white. The walls. The bed linen. The doors. The table next to her bed. Hell, even the curtains were white.  
Kasumi hated it. Hated it with an ever growing passion.  
The white made the red on her hands stand out so much more than a dull grey or a dark navy.  


Not that there was any blood on her hands. Not literally, at least.  
Kasumi’s gaze landed on the clock at the white wall opposite to her bed. One day, fifteen hours and twenty-eight minutes since the massacre. Sasuke had yet to wake up.  
The black-haired girl sighed and closed her eyes.  


_“Don’t fear this. This is the path you have chosen.”_  


Her eyes burned and her throat tightened.  


_“You’re strong. Keep fighting.”_  


Kasumi sighed and forced the guilt down with deep, slow breaths. There was no rhyme nor reason for her to break down over something she had chosen willingly.  
Itachi and her had known, what they were about to do. Had chosen it.  
Sasuke was alive. Nothing else mattered.  


There was a soft knock on her door, shaking her from her own thoughts.  
“Yes”, Kasumi answered and the door opened to reveal the white cloak of the Hokage.  
_Why was everything white?_  
“Sandaime-sama”, Kasumi bowed her head at him as he closed the door. He looked old. Older than before.  
And strangely defeated, when he looked at her. As if he had failed her. Maybe he had.  


“Kasumi-san”, he started, while he slowly walked to the only chair in the room and positioned it next to her bed to sit down. “As I told your brother, I have to thank you for preventing a civil war.”  
Kasumi’s lips twitched. So there was a seal around her room.  
“We did what we had to do”, she said stiffly.  
“Not quite”, Hiruzen sighed. “Danzō acted on his own. He will face punishment for that. I apologise for your loss.” He bowed his head and Kasumi’s breath caught.  
“I have dissolved his ANBU Ne and removed him from any position of power besides the Council”, the Hokage continued. A sick sort of satisfaction rolled through Kasumi, though she knew, that this wasn’t enough punishment to quench her thirst for revenge. But she could bide her time. She was a patient person. One day, Danzō would slip up and then she would be there to slice his throat.  


“I have also taken the liberty to arrange for your kin to be cremated”, Hiruzen continued and those words lifted a heavy weight from Kasumi’s shoulders.  
“Thank you, Sandaime-sama”, she said in a quiet tone. “It is important for…us—” Kasumi stumbled over her words. “For us Uchiha to protect the sharingan.”  
“The service will be held as soon as both you and Sasuke have been discharged from the hospital”, the Hokage replied. “All has been payed for.”  
Kasumi wanted to huff. As if money was any of her concerns at the moment.  
“Thank you, Sandaime-sama”, she said nonetheless.  
“Would you like to still live in the—”  
“No!” Kasumi had cut him off, before he could finish the sentence. The thought of returning to the Uchiha compound alone made Kasumi feel sick.  
Hiruzen nodded. He had expected something like that. “Then I will arrange for an apartment for you and Sasuke to be cleaned out”, he offered.  
“Thank you, Sandaime-sama”, Kasumi repeated. There was a lull in the conversation, as the Hokage simply regarded her with those ancient, wise eyes of his. As if he waited for something.  


“May I speak candidly, Sandaime-sama?”, Kasumi asked after a while. The Hokage made an inviting gesture with his pipe in his hand.  
“Itachi and I chose this path as ours”, she said and looked away, out of the window and into the heart of Konoha, “because we love this village and we love Sasuke. Many innocents have died by our hands.” Her dark eyes returned to the Hokage, now sharp and calculating. “I don’t know, if I’ll ever be able to forgive that.”  
It was a clear accusation against him and the Council for not acting before Danzō had them in his grip. Hiruzen acknowledged his mistake with a nod.  
“Nonetheless”, Kasumi continued, eyes returning to the view outside the window, “we went down that path knowing full well, what it would entail. It was our decision. Could it have been all prevented? If there hadn’t been an attack by the Kyūbi? Maybe. If the villagers and the administration hadn’t started to treat the Uchiha like ticking bombs? Perhaps.”  
A deep, heart-breaking sigh ran through her body.  
“I’m not too proud to see, that the Curse of Hatred is strong within my blood”, she said and tilted her head, so she could look at the Hokage again. “Sooner or later, there would have been a coup. I’m certain about that. It is not called a curse without reason, after all.” She hesitated a moment. Thoughts lingering in the darkness.  
“If you will have me”, Kasumi continued, “I would like to remain doing my duty to the village. As ANBU.” When the Hokage’s wrinkles deepened and Kasumi could feel the protest forming on his tongue, she held up a pale hand.  
“There is enough blood on these hands already”, she said, her dark eyes fixed on her own skin. “There’s no need to paint another one’s hands as red as mine.”  


Hiruzen released a long sigh. She would have made a formidable successor.  
“As much as it pains me”, he said after a while, “I can not argue with your logic and your kindness, Kasumi-san. There will be a purge within the next months in ANBU.” Wise eyes locked with hers.  
“I will pull those from ANBU, who have a kind heart”, he explained. “With these peaceful times, there is no need to damage our forces more than necessary. You would have been on that list.”  
Kasumi closed her eyes. She felt a pride in the things she could do for her home as ANBU. But it was a dark path to walk. A lonely path.  


She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Retirement from ANBU duty with thirteen. That sounded ridiculous. It…sounded ridiculously good.  
Her mind wandered to Shisui and his promises of a peaceful, normal life together. A sad smile graced her lips.  
“There is no way back, Sandaime-sama”, she said almost wistfully, her mind still on kind, smiling eyes and sunshine laughter. “Not for me, despite how kind one might think my heart to be.”  
“I hope, that will not be the case forever”, the Hokage answered. “I hope you find, that even you and Itachi, can walk in the light once again. But until then…” He hesitated.  
“Until then you will stay ANBU operative Ōkami.” The words rang heavy in the small room, but Kasumi felt a strange sort of relieve.  
Maybe it was her punishment for murdering her own flesh and blood? To always be damned to the dark.  


_  
_

* * *

_  
_

Kasumi left the hospital a day later. Sasuke had finally woken up, but he hadn’t said a word.  
The black-haired beauty sighed. She could guess, what Itachi had done to their younger brother.  
It would be a long road to recovery for him.  


The keys in her hand tinkered silvery, as she opened the door to the new apartment she would share with Sasuke. It was placed in a more quiet neighbourhood a few streets away from the market, right in the heart of the ninja sector of the village. The ANBU building was only a few alleys away.  
The apartment itself was nice. It had a small genkan that opened into a corridor with nice wooden flooring. To the left side was a well equipped kitchen with a dining table and a sliding door towards a fairly large living room. The right side of the corridor held the doors to the bathroom and two bedrooms. Kasumi decided, that Sasuke would get the room where two walls had windows. He’d need all the light he could get.  
All considered, Kasumi was satisfied with the layout of the apartment, it’s placement within the village and it’s furniture.  


She sighed heavily.  
There was still the problem with getting their stuff from the compound.  


Kasumi had arranged for the compound to be properly closed off, payed a heaping stack of ryō for a fuinjutsu specialist to layer seal over seal around the whole compound and had placed traps around its walls herself. She had sworn to never return.  
_Well…_  
She sighed again and let her lithe body slide down onto the couch in the living room. The sun shining through the large windows warmed her skin, but couldn’t thaw the ice slowly encompassing her heart. She opened her eyes, dark orbs looking up at the ceiling.  
She could just buy everything new…  
_Ah._ But Sasuke would need some of his things to stay tethered to the clan. To who he had been before the massacre.  


Kasumi blinked lazily. _There was no way around it._  


She took the long road, the longest she could find, to head to the Uchiha compound. Eyes and whispers followed her everywhere she went. The poison had been flushed from her system easily enough, just as Itachi and her had counted on. But there was another sort of poison running through her veins, thick and acidic, pulsing more with every whisper around her and every pitying glance shot her way.  
_Now, they were being sympathetic? Now?_  
Kasumi’s left eye twitched.  
Then she let her anger go with a deep exhale. They were innocent sheep. They knew nothing.  


Just shortly before Kasumi was at the Uchiha compound, she felt a familiar chakra approach.  
“Kasumi-chan”, Yūgao greeted her with a tiny, concerned smile, as the violet-haired woman fell into step with the younger girl. “It’s good to see you out and about.”  
“Thanks, Yūgao-san”, Kasumi answered. She was _not_ in the mood for company. But Yūgao had never fully grasped the concept of personal space, so there was little hope, that Kasumi could get rid of her soon.  
Resigning to her fate, Kasumi led them towards the compound.  
“Are you…” Yūgao began, uncertain how to continue. Kasumi didn’t look at her.  
“We have an apartment uptown”, she answered the unspoken question. “But there are some things Sasuke will need from…” They stopped in front of the closed main gate of the Uchiha compound. “…here.”  
For once Yūgao kept her mouth shut and simply watched as Kasumi infused chakra into the gate and opened it. The black-haired beauty entered without saying another word. Yūgao was uncertain, whether she should follow or not. Kasumi had always been a private person. In all the time she had dated Shisui, she had never introduced him to the team. Hell, they had never even been out for lunch after a mission.  
But Kasumi had left the gate open, so Yūgao took that as a reluctant invitation.  


Kasumi’s steps faltered, as she entered her childhood home. There hadn’t been any bodies or blood in the compound. Whoever the Hokage had ordered to take care of it, had done a damn good job.  
But all Kasumi could see were the kneeling forms of her parents and the gleam of a blade.  


_“Itachi. Kasumi. We will always love you.”_  


Kasumi ran. She ripped the doors open and just barely made it to the toilet in the bathroom before she threw up her breakfast.  
She heaved and retched. Pale, slender fingers gripping at porcelain as if it was a lifeline.  
Her whole body shuddered as there was nothing left but stomach acid to throw up, but she still heaved.  
A hand rubbed her back and held her hair away.  
Kasumi took a shaky breath, tears streaming down her face.  
“It’s going to be okay”, she heard Yūgao sooth. “One day, it’s going to be okay.”  
_No._ Kasumi wrestled down a sob. _No, it won’t._  


_She murdered them. She did not deserve friends like this._  
_If they knew—_  


Kasumi heaved again. But there was nothing left to throw up.  
Her body shook, when she leaned back against the cool tiles of the bathroom wall. A welcome sensation to her wrecked body.  
“Why don’t you tell me, what you need for Sasuke and I gather it, huh?”  
Kasumi looked at Yūgao with tear-streaked eyes and nothing but devastating pain in her expression.  
“Thanks, but…I have to do this”, she whispered and got up on shaky legs. Under Yūgao’s concerned eyes, Kasumi rinsed out her mouth at the sink and got out of the bathroom.  


Every step she took closer to Sasuke’s room, her resolve steeled.  
Yes, this was her childhood home.  
Yes, her parents — despite everything — were loving and supportive.  
Yes, she had killed them with her own hand.  
But she had chosen this path. Now she had to fucking deal with the consequences.  
With deep breaths, she started to compartmentalise her feelings and lock them away together with her heart.  


When she opened the door to her younger brother’s room, the look in her dark eyes was calm, collected and calculating.  


_  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya lovelies,
> 
> first of all: _**THANK YOU SO MUCH** for all the comments and encouraging reactions to the last two chapters!!_  
> They were very difficult to write, because I wanted them to feel raw and honest and touch something within one's soul. I hope I managed to do that.
> 
> Now, that the Uchiha massacre is said and done....this is where it continues to be difficult and hard and sad. It will take some time until the chapters will get light-hearted again and even more time until Kasumi is some version of a feeling person again.  
> Grief is a horrible thing and coupled with Survivor's Guilt a terrifying beast to fight.
> 
> If you feel like you're fighting a beast you think you're never able to defeat, talk to someone. Write me a message.  
> Loosing loved ones is changing one's entire being and it takes a lot to carry on. Talking usually helps.
> 
> On that somber note: Stay safe in these trying times and know you're cherished.  
> Murphy


End file.
